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FIGHTING FOR PEACE 



FIGHTING 

FOR 
PEACE 



BY 

HENRY VAN DYKE 

D.C.L. (OXFORD) 
EECEKTLT XJNITED STATES MINISTER TO HOLLAND 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1917 



-^5^ 



nS-?-' 



Copyright, 1917, hy Charles Scr{hner*s Sons 
Published November, 1917 



NOV I9I'9I7 




©C1.A577624 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Foreword S 

I. Fair-Weather and Storih Signs ... 9 

II. Apologue 49 

III. The Werwolf at Large 59 

IV. Germania Mendax 107 

V. A Dialogue on Peace between a House- 
holder AND A Burglar 139 

VI. Stand Fast, Ye Free ! 149 

VII. Pax Humana 213 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 



FOREWORD 
This brief series of chapters is not a tale 

"Of moving accidents by flood and field. 
Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly 
breach." 

Some dangers I have passed through during 
the last three years, but nothing to speak 
of. 

Nor is it a romance in the style of those 
thrilling novels of secret diplomacy which 
I peruse with wonder and delight in hours 
of relaxation, chiefly because they move 
about in worlds regarding which I have no 
experience and little faith. 

There is nothing secret or mysterious 
about the American diplomatic service, so 
far as I have known it. Of course there are 
times when, like every other honestly and 
properly conducted aflfair, it does not seek 
publicity in the newspapers. That, I should 

[3] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

suppose, must always be a fundamental 
condition of frank and free conversation 
between governments as between gentle- 
men. There is a certain kind of reserve 
which is essential to candor. 

But x\merican diplomacy has no pictur- 
esque meetings at midnight in the gloom 
of lonely forests; no confabulations in 
black cellars with bands of hireling des- 
peradoes waiting to carry out its decrees; 
no disguises, no masks, no dark lanterns — 
nothing half so exciting and melodramatic. 
On the contrary, it is amazingly plain and 
straightforward, with plenty of hard work, 
but always open and aboveboard. That is 
the rule for the diplomatic service of the 
United States. 

Its chief and constant aims are known to 
all men. First, to maintain American prin- 
ciples and interests, and to get a fair show- 
ing for them in the world. Second, to pre- 
serve and advance friendly relations and 
intercourse with the particular nation to 
which the diplomat is sent. Third, to pro- 

[41 



FOREWORD 

mote a just and firm and free peace through- 
out the world, so that democracy every- 
where may live without fear. 

It was the last of these three aims that 
acted as the main motive in my accept- 
ance of President Wilson's invitation to go 
out as American Minister to the Nether- 
lands and Luxembourg in the summer of 
1913. It was pleasant, of course, to return 
for a while to the land from which my an- 
cestors came so long ago. It seemed also 
that some useful and interesting work might 
be done to forward the common interests 
and ideals of the United States and the 
Netherlands — that brave, liberty-loving na- 
tion from which our country learned and 
received so much in its beginnings — ^and in 
particular that there might be opportunity 
for co-operation in the Far East, where 
the Dutch East Indies and the Philippines 
are next-door neighbors. But the chief 
thing that drew me to Holland was the 
desire to promote the great work of peace 
which had been begun by the International 

[5] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Peace Conferences at The Hague. This 
indeed was what the President especially 
charged me to do. 
Two conferences had already been held 
and had accomplished much. But their 
work was incomplete. It lacked firm at- 
tachments and sanctions. It was left to a 
certain extent "hanging in the air." It 
needed just those things which the American 
delegates to the Conference of 1907 had 
advocated — the establishment of a Perma- 
nent Court of Arbitral Justice; an Inter- 
national Prize Court; an agreement for the 
protection of private property at sea in 
time of war; the further study and discus- 
sion of the question of the reduction of 
armaments by the nations; and so on. 
Most of these were the things of which 
Germany had hitherto prevented the at- 
tainment. A third International Peace Con- 
ference was necessary to secure and carry 
on the work of the first two. The President 
told me to do all that I properly could to 
forward the assembling of that conference 

[6] 



FOREWORD 

in the Palace of Peace at the eariiest pos- 
sible date. 

So I went to Holland as an envoy of the 
world-peace founded on justice which is 
America's great desire. For that cause I 
worked and strove. Of that cause I am still 
a devoted follower and servant. I am work- 
ing for it now, but with a difference. It 
is evident that we cannot maintain that 
cause, as the world stands to-day, without 
fighting for it. And after it is won, it will 
need protection. It must be Peace with 
Righteousness and Power. 

The following chapters narrate some of 
the experiences — things seen and heard 
and studied during my years of service 
abroad — ^which have forced me to this 
conclusion. To the articles which were 
published in Scribner^s Magazine for Sep- 
tember, October, and November, 1917, I 
have added two short chapters on the 
cause of the war and the kind of peace 
America is fighting for. 

The third peace conference is more needed, 

[7] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

more desirable, than ever. But we shall 
never get it until the military forces of Ger- 
many are broken, and the predatory Pots- 
dam gang which rules them is brought low. 



[81 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM 
SIGNS 



It takes a New England farmer to note 
and interpret the signs of coming storm on 
a beautiful and sunny day. Perhaps his 
power is due in part to natural sharpness, 
and in part to the innate pessimism of the 
Yankee mind, which considers the fact 
that the hay is cut but not yet in the barn 
a sufficient reason for believing that "'it'll 
prob'ly rain t'morrow." 

I must confess that I had not enough of 
either of these qualities to be observant 
and fearful of the presages of the oncoming 
tempest which lurked in the beautiful 
autumn and winter of 1913-14 in Europe. 
Looking back at them now, I can see that 
the signs were ominous. But anybody can 
be wise after the event, and the role of a 

[111 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

reminiscent prophet is too easy to be worth 
playing. 

Certainly all was bright and tranquil 
when we rolled through the pleasant land 
of France and the rich cities of Belgium, 
and came by ship-thronged Rotterdam to 
The Hague in the first week of October, 
1913. Holland was at her autumnal best. 
Wide pastures wonderfully green were full 
of drowsy, contented cattle. The level 
brown fields and gardens were smoothly 
ploughed and harrowed for next year's 
harvest, and the vast tulip-beds were ready 
to receive the little gray bulbs which would 
overflow April with a flood-tide of flowers. 
On the broad canals innumerable barges 
and sloops and motor-boats were leisurely 
passing, and on the little side-canals and 
ditches which drained the fields the duck- 
weed spread its pale-emerald carpet undis- 
turbed. In the woods — the tall w^oods of 
Holland — the elms and the lindens were 
putting on frosted gold, and the massy 
beeches glowed with ruddy bronze in the 

[12] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

sunlight. The quaint towns and villages 
looked at themselves in the waters at their 
feet and were content. Slowly the long arms 
of the windmills turned in the suave and 
shimmering air. Everybody, in city and 
country, seemed to be busy without haste. 
And overhead, the luminous cloud moun- 
tains — the poor man's Alps — marched plac- 
idly with the wind from horizon to horizon. 
The Hague — that *' largest village in Eu- 
rope," that city of three hundred thousand 
iuhabitants set in the midst of a park, that 
seat of government which does not dare to 
call itself the capital because Amsterdam 
is jealous — was in especially good form and 
humor, looking forward to a winter of un- 
hurried gayety and feasting such as the 
Hollanders love. The new Palace of Peace, 
given by Mr. Andrew Carnegie for the use 
of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and 
its auxiliary bodies, had been opened with 
much ceremony in September. Situated 
before the entrance of that long, tree- 
embowered avenue which is called the Old 

[13] 



FIGHTING FOE PEACE 

Scheveningen Road, the edifice has an 
imposing exterior although a mixture of 
architects in the process of building has 
given it something the look of a glorified 
railway station. But the interior is alto- 
gether dignified and splendid, more pala- 
tial, in fact, than any of the royal residences. 
It is lined with costly marbles, rare Eastern 
woods, wonderful Japanese tapestries, and 
adorned with gifts from all the nations, 
except the United States, which had prom- 
ised to give a marble statue representing 
"Peace through Justice," to be placed on 
the central landing of the great Stairway 
of Honor, the most conspicuous position 
in the whole building. The promise had 
been standing for some years, but not the 
statue. One of my first minor tasks at The 
Hague was to see to it that active steps 
were taken at Washington to fulfil this 
promise, and to fill this empty place which 
waits for the American sculpture. 
Meantime the rich collection of books on 
international law was being arranged and 

[14] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

classified in the library under the learned 
direction of M. Alberic Rolin. The late 
roses were blooming abundantly in the 
broad gardens of the palace. Thousands of 
visitors were coming every day to see this 
new wonder of the world, the royal house 
of ''Vrede door RechtJ^ 

Queen Wilhelmina was still at her coun- 
try palace, Het Loo^ in Gelderland. It was 
about the middle of October that I was 
invited there to lunch and to have my first 
audience with Her Majesty, and to present 
my letter of credence as American Minister. 

The journey of three or four hours was 
made in company with the Dutch Minister 
of Foreign Affairs, Jonkheer Loudon, who 
represented the Netherlands at Washington 
for several years and is an intelligent and 
warm friend of the United States, and the 
Japanese Minister, Mr. Aimaro Sato, a 
very agreeable gentleman (and, by the way, 
an ardent angler), who now represents 
Japan at Washington. He talked a little, 
and with great good sense and feeling, of 

[15] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the desirability of a better understanding 
and closer relations between the United 
States and Japan. I liked what he said and 
the way he said it. But most of our conver- 
sation on that pleasant journey, it must be 
confessed, was personal and anecdotic — 
fish-stories not excluded. 

The ceremony of presenting the letter of 
credence, which I had rather dreaded, was 
in fact quite simple and easy. I handed to 
Her Majesty the commendatory epistle of 
the President (beginning, as usual, "Great 
and good friend") and made a short speech 
in English, according to the regulations. 
The Queen, accepting the letter, made a 
brief friendly reply in French, which is the 
language of the court, and passed at once 
into an informal conversation in English. 
She speaks both languages fluently and well. 
Her first inquiry, according to royal cus- 
tom, was about family matters; the num- 
ber of the children; the health of the house- 
hold; the finding of a comfortable house 
to live in at The Hague, and so on. There 

[16] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

is something very homely and human in 
the good manners of a real court. Then the 
Queen asked about the Dutch immigrants 
in America, especially in recent times — 
were they good citizens? I answered that 
we counted them among the best, especially 
strong in agriculture and in furniture- 
making, where I had seen many of them 
in the famous shops of Grand Rapids, 
Michigan. The Queen smiled, and said that 
the Netherlands, being a small country, 
did not want to lose too many of her good 
people. 
The impression left upon me by this first 
interview, and deepened by all that fol- 
lowed, was that Queen Wilhelmina is a 
woman admirably fit for her task. Her 
natural shyness of temperament is some- 
times misinterpreted as a haughty reserve. 
But that is not correct. She is, in fact, most 
sincere and straightforward, devoted to her 
duty and very intelligent in doing it, one 
of the ablest and sanest crowned heads 
in Europe, an altogether good ruler for the 

[17] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

very democratic country of the Nether- 
lands. 

We settled down in the home which I had 
rented at The Hague. It was a big, dignified 
house on the principal street, the Lange 
Voorhout, which is almost like a park, with 
four rows of trees down the middle. Our 
house had once been the palace of the Duch- 
ess of Saxe- Weimar, a princess of the Orange- 
Nassau family. But it was not at all showy, 
only comfortable and large. This was for- 
tunate for our country when the rush of 
fugitive American tourists came at the be- 
ginning of the war, for every room on the 
first floor, and the biggest room on the 
second floor, were crowded with the work 
that we had to do for them. 

But during the first winter everything 
went smoothly; there was no hurry and no 
crowding. The Queen came back to her 
town palace. The rounds of ceremonial 
visits were ground out. The Hague people 
and our diplomatic colleagues were most 
cordial and friendly. There were dinners 

[18] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

and dances and court receptions and fancy- 
dress balls — ^all of a discreet and moderate 
joyousness which New York and Newport, 
perhaps even Chicago and Hot Springs, 
would have called tame and rustic. The 
weather, for the first time in several years, 
was clear, cold, and full of sunshine. The 
canals were frozen. Everybody, from grand- 
parents to grandchildren, including the 
Crown Princess Juliana, went on skates, 
which greatly added to the gayety of the 
nation. 
At the same time there was plenty of 
work to do. The aflfairs of the legation had 
to be straightened out; the sending of 
despatches and the carrying out of instruc- 
tions speeded up; the arrangements for a 
proposed international congress on educa- 
tion in the autumn of 1914, forwarded; 
the Bryan treaty for a year of investiga- 
tion before the beginning of hostilities — 
the so-called "Stop-Look-Listen" treaty — 
modified and helped through; and the 
thousand and one minor, unforeseen jobs 

[19] 



FIGHTEsTG FOR PEACE 

that fall on a diplomatic chief carefully 
attended to. 

n 

Through all this time the barometer stood 
at "Set Fair." The new Dutch Ministry, 
which Mr. Cort van der Linden, a wise and 
eloquent philosophic liberal, had formed 
on the mandate of the Queen, seemed to 
have the confidence of the Parliament. 
Although it had no pledged majority of 
any party or bloc behind it, the announce- 
ment of its simple programme of "carrying 
out the wishes of the majority of the voters 
as expressed in the last election," met with 
approval on every side. The "Anti-Revolu- 
tionary" lion lay down with the "Christian- 
Historical" lamb; the "Liberal" bear and 
the "Clerical" cow fed together; and the 
sucking "Social-Democrat" laid his hand 
on the "Reactionary" adder's den. It was 
idyllic. Real progress looked nearly pos- 
sible. 

The international sky was clear except 

[20] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

for the one big cloud, which had been there 
so long that the world had grown used to 
it. The Great Powers kept up the mad race 
of armaments, purchasing mutual terror at 
the price of billions of dollars every year. 

Now the pace was quickened, but the 
race remained the same, with Germany 
still in the lead. Her new army bill of 1912 
provided for a peace strength of 870,000 
men, and a war strength of 5,400,000 men. 
Russia followed with a bill raising the term 
of military service from three to three and 
a half years; France with a bill raising the 
term of service from two to three years 
(but this was not until in June, 1913). 
Great Britain, with voluntary service, 
still had a comparatively small army: in 
size "contemptible," as Kaiser Wilhelm 
called it later, but in morale and spirit un- 
surpassed. Evidently the military force of 
Germany, which lay like a glittering sword 
in her ruler's hand, was larger, better or- 
ganized and equipped, than any other in 
the world. 

[21] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

But might it not still be used as a make- 
weight in the scales of negotiation rather 
than as a weapon of actual offense? Might 
not the Kaiser still be pleased with his dra- 
matic role of "the war-lord who kept the 
peace"? Might he not do again as he did 
successfully in 1909, when Austria violated 
the provisions of the Congress of Berlin 
(1878) by annexing Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina, and Germany protected the theft; 
and with partial success at Algeciras in 
1906, and after the Agadir incident in 
1911, when Germany gained something 
she wanted though less than she claimed? 
Might he not still be content with show- 
ing and shaking the sword, without flesh- 
ing it in the body of Europe? It seemed 
wiser, because safer for Germany, that the 
Kaiser should follow that line. The me- 
thodical madness of a forced war looked 
incredible. 

Thus all of us who were interested in the 
continuance and solidification of the work 
of the peace conferences at The Hague 

[22] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

reasoned ourselves into a peaceful hope. 
We knew that no other power except Ger- 
many was really prepared for war. We knew 
that the efifort to draw Great Britain into 
an offensive and defensive alliance with 
Germany had failed, although London was 
willing to promise help to Berlin if attacked. 
We remembered Bismarck's warning that 
a war against Russia and Great Britain at 
the same time would be fatal, and we trusted 
that it had not been forgotten in Berlin. 
We knew that Germany, under her policy 
of industrial development and pacific pen- 
etration, was prospering more than ever, 
and we thought she might enjoy that 
enough to continue it. We hoped that a 
third peace conference would be assembled 
before a general conflict of arms could be 
launched, and that some things might be 
done there which would make wilful and ag- 
gressive war vastly more dangerous and dif- 
ficult, if not impossible. So we were at ease 
in Zion and worked in the way which seemed 
most promising for the peace of the world. 

[23] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

But that way was not included in the Ger- 
man plan. It was remote from the Berlin- 
Baghdad-Bahn. It did not lead toward a 
dominant imperial state of Mittel-Europa, 
with tentacles reaching out to ports on 
every sea and strait. The plan for another 
Hague conference failed to interest the 
ruling clique at Berlin and Potsdam be- 
cause they had made "other arrange- 
ments." 

Very gradually slight indications of this 
fact began to appear, though they were 
not clearly understood at the time. It was 
like watching a stage-curtain which rises 
very slowly a little way and then stops. 
Through the crack one could see feet mov- 
ing about and hear rumbling noises. Evi- 
dently a drama was in preparation. But 
what it was to be could hardly be guessed. 
Then, after a long wait, the curtain rose 
swiftly. The tragedy was revealed. Flames 
burst forth from the stage and wrapped the 
whole house in fire. Some of the spectators 
were the first victims. The conflagration still 

[24] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

rages. It will not be put out until the 

flame-lust is smothered in the hearts of 

those who kindled and spread the great 
fire in Europe. 

Ill 

I must get back from this expression of 
my present feelings and views to the plain 
story of the experiences which gradually 
made me aware of the actual condition of 
affairs in Europe and the great obstacle 
to a durable peace in the world. 

The first thing that disquieted me a little 
was the strange difficulty encountered in 
making the preliminary arrangements for 
the third peace conference. The final reso- 
lution of the second conference in 1907, 
unanimously recommended, first, that the 
next conference should be held vnthin a 
period of eight yearSy and second, that a 
preparatory committee should be appointed 
two years beforehand, to consider the sub- 
jects which were ripe for discussion, and to 
draw up a programme which could be ex- 

[25] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

amined in advance by the countries inter- 
ested. That, of course, was necessary. No 
sensible government will go into a con- 
ference blindfold, without knowing what 
is to be talked about. 
But in 1914, when the matter came into 
my hands, the lapse of time and the negli- 
gence of the nations (the United States 
included) had made it too late to fulfil both 
of these recommendations. If one was car- 
ried out the other must be modified or dis- 
regarded. The then Secretary of State, Mr. 
Bryan, instructed me to endeavor to have 
the conference called in 1915, that is, within 
the period of eight years. After careful in- 
vestigation and earnest effort, I reported 
that it could not be done at that date. 
The first thing was to get the preparatory 
committee, which would require at least 
two years for its formation and work. 
Toward this point, then, with the approval 
of the President, I steered and rowed hard, 
receiving the warmest sympathy and most 
effective co-operation from Jonkheer Lou- 

[26] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

don, the Netherlands Minister of Foreign 
Affairs. Indeed the entire Dutch Govern- 
ment, with the Queen at the head, were 
favorable. Holland naturally likes to have 
the peace conferences at The Hague. They 
add to the dignity of the country. The 
honor is well-deserved, for Holland may 
fairly be called the fountainhead of mod- 
ern international law, and has produced 
many of its best expounders, from Grotius 
and Bynkershoek to Asser. Moreover, as a 
side consideration, these meetings bring a 
multitude of visitors to the country, some 
famous and many profitable, and this is 
not bad for business. So the movement is 
generally popular. 

My own particular suggestion toward get- 
ting the required "preparatory committee" 
seemed to its author to have the double 
advantage of practical speed and represen- 
tative quality. It was to make use, at least 
for the first steps, of a body already in 
existence and in which all the nations were 
represented. But there is no need of describ- 

[27] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

ing it, because it did not go through. I 
was not so much stuck upon it that any 
other fair and speedy plan would not have 
received my hearty backing. 

But the trouble was that, push as hard 
as we would, there was no plan that would 
move beyond a certain point. There it 
stood still. Washington and The Hague 
were earnest and enthusiastic. St. Peters- 
burg was warmly interested, but showed a 
strong preference for its own plan, and a 
sense of its right to a leading place as the 
proposer of the first conference. London 
and Paris seemed favorable to the general 
idea, and took an expectant attitude toward 
any proposal of organization that would 
be on the level and fair for everybody. 
Berlin was singularly reserved and vague. 
It said little or nothing. It did not seem to 
care about the matter. 

I talked informally with my German 
friends at The Hague. They were polite 
and attentive. They may have had a real 
interest in the subject, but it was not 

[28] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

shown so that you could notice it. They 
expressed opinions on the value of peace 
conferences in general which I am not at 
liberty to repeat. The idea of a third con- 
ference at The Hague may have seemed 
beautiful to them, but it looked as if they 
felt that it was lacking in actuality. Pos- 
sibly I did not understand them. That was 
just the trouble — I could not. It was all 
puzzling, baffling, mysterious. 

It s emed as if all our efforts to forward 
the calling of the next conference in the 
interest of permanent peace brought up 
dead against an invisible barrier, an im- 
passable wall like the secret line drawn in 
the air by magic, thinner than a cobw^eb, 
more impenetrable than steel. What was 
it.f^ Indifference.^ General scepticism? Pre- 
occupation with other designs which made 
the discussion of peace plans premature 
and futile? I did not know. But certainly 
there was something in the way, and the 
undiscovered nature of that something was 
food for thought. 

[29] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

The next jolt that was given to my com- 
fortable hope that the fair weather in 
Europe was likely to last for some time was 
a very slight incident that happened in 
the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, to which 
small sovereign state I was also accredited 
as American Minister. 

The existence and status of Luxembourg 
in Europe before the war are not universally 
understood in America, and it may be use- 
ful to say a few words about it. The grand 
duchy is a tiny independent country, about 
1,000 square miles of lovely hills and dales 
and table-lands, clothed with noble woods, 
watered by clear streams, and inhabited by 
about 250,000 people of undoubted Ger- 
man-Keltic stock and of equally undoubted 
French sympathies. The land lies in the form 
of a northward-pointing triangle between 
Germany, Belgium, and France. The sover- 
eign is the Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid 
(of Nassau), a beautiful, sincere, high-spir- 
ited girl who succeeded to the crown on 
her father's death. The political leader 

[30] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

for twenty-five years was the Minister-Pres- 
ident Paul Eyschen, an astute statesman 
and a devoted patriot, who nursed his 
little country in his arms like a baby and 
brought it to a high degree of prosperity 
and contentment. 

Like Belgium, Luxembourg was a neutral- 
ized country — the former by the Treaty of 
1831; the latter by the Treaty of 1867; 
both treaties were signed and guaranteed 
by the Great Powers. But there was a dis- 
tinct difference between the tw^o neutrali- 
ties. That of Belgium was an armed neu- 
trality; her forts and her military forces 
were left to her. That of Luxembourg was 
a disarmed neutrality; her only fortress was 
dismantled and razed to the ground, and 
her army was reduced and limited to one 
company of gendarmes and one company 
of infantry. Thus Belgium had the right, 
the duty, and the power to resist if her 
territory were violated by the armed forces 
of a belligerent. But Luxembourg was made 
powerless to resist; she could only protest. 

[31] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Remember this when you consider the fates 
which fell on the two countries. Remember 
how the proud and independent little 
duchy must have felt beforehand, stand- 
ing without a weapon amid the mighty 
armed powers of Europe. 
It was in February or early In March, 
1914, that the Grand Duchess sent out an 
invitation to the Diplomatic Corps to at- 
tend a court function. We all went gladly 
because of the pleasantness of the land and 
the good hospitality of the palace. There 
were separate audiences with Her Royal 
Highness in the morning, a big luncheon 
given by the Cabinet and the city authori- 
ties at noon, a state dinner in the old Span- 
ish palace at night, and after that a gala 
concert. It was then that the incident oc- 
curred. I had heard in the town that thirty 
military officers from the German garrison 
at Trier, a few miles away on the border, 
were coming, invited or self-invited, to the 
concert, and the Luxembourgers did not 
like the idea at all. Well, the Germans came 

[32] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

in a body, some of them courteous and 
affable, the others stiff, wooden, high- 
chinned, and staring — distinctly a foreign 
group. They were tactless enough to pro- 
pose staying over the next day. A big crowd 
of excited Luxembourgers filled the streets 
in the morning and gave every sign of ex- 
treme dissatisfaction. "What were these 
Prussian soldiers doing there? Had they 
come to spy out the land and the city in 
preparation for an invasion? Was there a 
stray prince or duke among them who 
wanted to marry the Grand Duchess? The 
music was over. These Kriegs-Herren had 
better go home at once — at once, did they 
understand?" Yes, they understood, and 
they went by the next train, which took 
them to Trier in an hour. 

It was a very trivial affair. But it seemed 
to throw some light on the mentality of the 
German army. It also made me reflect 
upon the state of mind of this little unarmed 
country living next door to the big military 
machine and directly on the open way to 

[33] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Prance. Yet we all laughed and joked about 
the incident on the way back to Holland 
in the train. Only the French, German, 
Italian, and Belgian Ministers were not 
with us, for these countries have separate 
missions in Luxembourg. 

At The Hague everything pursued its 
tranquil course as usual. Golf set in. The 
tulips bloomed in a sea of splendor. I strove 
at the footless task of promoting the third 
peace conference. It was not until the 
season of Pentecost, 1914, that I went to 
Luxembourg again, intending to gather 
material for a report on the flourishing 
steel industry there, which had developed 
some new processes, and to get a little 
trout-fishing on the side. During that 
pleasant journey two things happened which 
opened my eyes. 

The first was at a luncheon which Prime 
Minister Eyschen gave me. It was a friendly 
foursome: our genial host; the German 
Minister, Von B.; the French Minister, M.; 
and myself. Mr. Eyschen's wine-cellar was 

[34] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

famous, and his old Luxembourg cook was 
a wonder; she served a repast which made 
us hnger at table for three hours. The con- 
versation rambled everywhere, and there 
were no chains or padlocks on it. It was in 
French, English, and German, but mostly 
in French. One remark has stuck in my 
memory ever since. Mr. Eyschen said to 
me: "You have heard of the famous 'Lux- 
embourger Loch'? It is the easiest military 
road between Germany and France." Then 
he continued with great good humor to 
the two gentlemen at the ends of the table: 
"Perhaps one of your two countries may 
march an army through it before long, and 
we certainly cannot stop you." Then he 
turned to Herr von B., still smiling: "Most 
likely it will be your country, Excellenz ! 
But please remember, for the last ten years 
we have made our mining concessions and 
contracts so that they will hold, whatever 
happens. And we have spent the greatest 
part of our national income on our roads. 
You can't roll them up and carry them off 

[35] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

in your pocket !" Of course we all laughed. 
But it was serious. Two months later the 
French Minister had to make a quick and 
quiet flight along one of those very roads. 

A couple of days after the luncheon, at 
the beginning of June, I saw a curious 
confirmation of Eyschen's hint. Having 
gone just over the German border for a 
bit of angling, I was following a very lovely 
little river full of trout and grayling. With 
me were two or three Luxembourgers and 
as many Germans, to whom fishing with 
the fly — fine and far off — was a new and 
curious sight. Along the east bank of the 
stream ran one of the strategic railways of 
Germany, from Koln to Trier. All day long 
innumerable trains rolled southward along 
that line, and every train was packed with 
soldiers in field-gray — their cheerful, stolid 
bullet-heads stuck out of all the windows. 
"Wliy so many soldiers," I asked, "and 
where are they all going .^" "Ach!" replied 
my German companions, "it is Pfingstferien 
(Pentecost vacation) , and they are sent a 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

changing of scene and air to get." My Lux- 
embourg friends laughed. "Yes, yes," they 
said. "That is it. Trier has a splendid cli- 
mate for soldiers. The situation is holossal 
for that!" 

When we passed through the hot and 
dusty little city it was simply swarming 
with the field-gray ones — thousands upon 
thousands of them — new barracks every- 
where; parks of artillery; mountains of 
munitions and military stores. It was a 
veritable base of operation, ready for war. 

Now the point is that Trier is just seven 
miles from Wasserbillig on the Luxembourg 
frontier, the place where the armed Ger- 
man forces entered the neutral land on 
August 2, 1914. 

The government and the "grande armee" 
of the Grand Duchess protested. But — well, 
did you ever see a wren resist an eagle .^^ 
The motor-van (not the private car of Her 
Royal Highness, as rumor has said, but 
just an ordinary panier-a-salade) , which 
was drawn up across the road to the cap- 

[37] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

ital, was rolled into the ditch. The mighty- 
host of invaders, having long been ready, 
marched triumphantly into the dismantled 
fortress, and along their smooth, unlawful 
way to France. I had caught, in June, 
angling along the little river, a passing 
glimpse of the preparation for that march. 
But what about things on the French side 
of the border in that same week of June, 
1914? Well, I can only tell what I saw. 
Returning to Holland by way of Paris, I 
saw no soldiers in the trains, only a few 
scattered members of the local garrisons 
at the railway stations, not a man in arms 
within ten kilometres of the frontier. It 
seemed as if France slept quietly at the 
southern edge of Luxembourg, believing 
that the solemn treaty, which had made 
Germany respect the neutrality of that 
little land even in the war of 1870, still 
held good to safeguard her from a treach- 
erous attack in the rear, through a peaceful 
neighbor's garden. Longwy — the poor, old- 
fashioned fortress in the northeast corner 

[38] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

of France — had hardly enough guns for a 
big rabbit-shoot, and hardly enough gar- 
rison to man the guns. The conquering 
Crown Prince afterward took it almost as 
easily as a boy steals an apple from an un- 
protected orchard. It was the first star in 
his diadem of glory. But Verdun, though 
near by, was not the second. 

From this little journey I went home to 
The Hague with the clear conviction that 
one nation in Europe was ready for war, 
and wanted war, and intended war on the 
first convenient opportunity. But when 
would that be? Not even the most truc- 
ulent government could well venture a 
bald declaration of hostilities without some 
plausible pretext, some ostensible ground 
of quarrel. Where was it? There was none 
in sight. Of course the danger of a homi- 
cidal crisis in the insanity of armaments 
was always there. And of course the ambi- 
tion of Germany for "a place in the sun" 
was as coldly fierce as ever. The Pan-Ger- 
manists were impatient. But they could 

[39] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

hardly proclaim war without saying what 
place and whose place they wanted. Nor 
was there any particular grievance on which 
they could stand as a colorable ground of 
armed conflict. The Kaiser had prepared 
for war, no doubt. The argument and justi- 
fication of war as the means of spreading 
the German Kultur were in the Potsdam 
mind. But the concrete and definite occa- 
sion of war was lacking. How long would 
that lack hold off the storm .^ Could the 
precarious peace be maintained until mea- 
sures to enforce and protect it by common 
consent could be taken ? 

These questions were answered with dread- 
ful suddenness. The curtain which had haK- 
concealed the scene went up with a rush, 
and the missing occasion of war was re- 
vealed in the flash of a pistol. 

IV 

On June 28, 1914, the Archduke Franz 
Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austro- 
Hungarian crowns, and his wife, the Duchess 

[40] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

of Hohenburg, were shot to death in the 
street at Serajevo, the capital of the an- 
nexed provinces of Bosnia and Herzego- 
vina, to which they were paying a visit of 
ceremony. The news of this murder filled 
all thoughtful people in Europe with horror 
and dismay. It was a dark and sinister 
crime. The Crown Prince and his wife had 
not been personcB gratce with the Viennese 
court, but the brutal manner of their 
taking off aroused the anger of the people. 
Vengeance was called for. The two wretched 
murderers were Austrian subjects, but they 
were Servian sympathizers, and in some 
kind of connection with a society called 
Narodna Obrana, whose avowed object was 
to work for a "Greater Servia," including 
the southern Slavic provinces of Austria. 
The Government of Austria-Hungary, hav- 
ing conducted a secret inquiry, declared 
that it had proofs that the instructions and 
the weapons for the crime came from Ser- 
via. On the other hand, it has not been 
denied that the Servian Minister at Vienna 

[41] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

had conveyed a warning to the Government 
there, a week before the ceremonial visit 
to Serajevo, to the effect that it would be 
wise to give the visit up, as there were 
grounds for believing that an assassination 
had been planned. We knew little or noth- 
ing of all this at the time, in The Hague. 
Anxiously we waited for light under the 
black cloud. It came like lightning in the 
Austro-Hungarian note to Servia of July 
23, 1914. 

It was made public the next day. I re- 
member coming home that evening from 
a motor-drive through the dead cities of 
the Zuyder Zee. Taking up the newspaper 
in the quiet library, I read the note. The 
paper dropped from my hand, and I said 
to my son: "That means an immense war. 
God knows how far it will go and how long 
it wiU last." 

This Austrian ultimatum was so severe in 
matter and in manner as to justify the 
comment of Sir Edward Grey: *' Never 
have I seen one state address to another 

[42] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

independent state a document of so for- 
midable a character." It not only dictated 
a public confession of guilt; it also made a 
series of ten sweeping demands on Servia, 
one of which (No. 5) seemed to imply a 
surrender of independent sovereignty; and 
it allowed only forty-eight hours for an 
unqualijSed, complete acceptance. 

Russia promptly declared that she would 
not object to the punishment of Servians 
for any proved oflfense, but that she must 
defend the territorial integrity and inde- 
pendence of Servia. Italy and France^sug- 
gested an extension of time for the answer. 
France and Russia advised Servia to make 
a general acceptance of the ultimatum. She 
did so in her reply of the 25th, reserving 
demand No. 5, which she said she did not 
understand, and offering to submit that 
point, or the whole matter, to the tribunal 
at The Hague. Austria had instructed her 
minister at Belgrade to reject anything but 
a categorical submission to the ultimatum. 
When the Servian reply was handed to 

[431 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

him he said that it was not good enough, 
demanded his passports, and left the capi- 
tal within half an hour. Germany, vowing 
that she had no knowledge of the text of 
the Austrian note before it was presented 
and had not influenced its contents (which 
seems incredible, as I shall show later), 
nevertheless announced that she approved 
and would support it. 

Verily this was "miching mallecho," as 
Hamlet says. It meant mischief. Austria 
was inflexible in her purpose to make war 
on Servia. Russia's warning that in such a 
case she could not stand aside and see a 
small kindred nation subjugated, and her 
appeals for arbitration or four-power media- 
tion, which Great Britain, France, and Italy 
supported, were disregarded. Behind Austria 
stood Germany, proud, menacing, armed 
to the teeth, ready for attack, supporting 
if not instigating the relentless Austrian 
purpose. Something vast and very evil was 
impending over the world. 

That was our conviction at The Hague in 

[44] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

the fateful week from July 24 to August 1, 
1914. We who stood outside the secret 
councils of the Central Powers were both 
bewildered and dismayed. Could it be that 
Europe of the twentieth century was to be 
thrust back into the ancient barbarism of 
a general war ? It was like a dreadful night- 
mare. There was the head of the huge 
dragon, crested, fanged, clad in glittering 
scales, poised above the world and ready 
to strike. We were benumbed and terrified. 
There was nothing that we could do. The 
monstrous thing advanced, but even while 
we shuddered we could not make ourselves 
feel that it was real. It had the vagueness 
and the horrid pressure of a bad dream. 

If it seemed dreamlike to us, so near at 
hand, how could the people in America, 
three thousand miles away, feel its reality 
or grasp its meaning .^^ They could not do 
it then, and many of them have not done 
it yet. 

But we who were on the other side of the 
sea were suddenly and rudely awakened 

[45] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

to know that the bad dream was all too 
real. On July 28 Austria declared war on 
Servia. On the 29th Russia ordered a par- 
tial mobilization of troops on the Austrian 
frontier. On the same night the Austrian 
troops entered Servia and bombarded Bel- 
grade. On the 31st Austria and Russia or- 
dered a general mobilization. 

Then Germany, already coiled, struck. 

On August 1 Germany declared war on 
Russia. On the 2d Germany invaded Lux- 
embourg and France. On the 3d Germany 
declared war on France. On the 4th Ger- 
many invaded Belgium, in violation of her 
solemn treaty. On the 5th Great Britain, 
having given warning to the Kaiser that 
she meant to keep her promise to protect 
the neutrality of Belgium, severed diplo- 
matic relations, and on the 6th Parliament, 
by a vote of extraordinary supply, formally 
accepted a state of war with Germany, the 
invader. 

So the storm signs, foreshadowed in fair 
weather, were fulfilled in tempest, more 

[46] 



FAIR-WEATHER AND STORM SIGNS 

vast and cruel than the world had ever 
known. 

The Barabbas of war was preferred to 
the Christ of righteous judgment. 

The hope of an enduring peace through 
justice receded and grew dim. We knew 
that it could not be rekindled until the 
ruthless military power of Germany, that 
had denied and rejected it, was defeated 
and brought to repentance. 

Thus those who loved true peace — ^peace 
with equal security for small and great 
nations, peace with law protecting the liber- 
ties of the people, peace with power to de- 
fend itself against assault — were forced to 
fight for it or give it up forever. 



[471 



II 

APOLOGUE 



APOLOGUE 

The man who was also a Werwolf sat in 
in his arbor, drinking excellent beer. 

He was not an ill-looking man. His fond- 
ness for an out-of-door life had given him 
a ruddy color. He was tall and blond. His 
eyes were gray. But there was a shifty look 
in them, now dreamy, now fierce. At times 
they contracted to mere slits. His chin 
sloped away to nothing. His legs were long 
and thin, his movements springy and un- 
certain. 

The philosopher who came to pay his re- 
spects to the man who was also a Werwolf 
(whom we shall henceforth call MWAW 
for short) was named Professor Schmuck. 
He was a globular man, with protruding 
china-blue eyes, much magnified by im- 
mense spectacles. The fame of his book on 
Eschatological Problems among the Hivites 

[51] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

and HiUites was world-wide. But his real 
specialty was universal knowledge. 

Yet on entering the arbor where MWAW 
was sitting, this world-renowned Learned 
One made three deep obeisances, as if he 
were approaching an idol, and stammered 
in a husky voice: "Highly Exalted! — dare 

I — r 

*'Ah, our good Schmuck!" said MWAW, 
turning in his chair and recrossing his legs. 
"Come in. Take place. Take beer. Take 
breath. Speak out." 

The professor, thus graciously reassured, 
set forth his errand. 

"I have come to you. Highly Exalted, 
to inquire your exalted views on the sub- 
ject of Lycanthropy. Your Exaltedness 
knows " 

"Yes, yes," broke in MWAW, "old Teu- 
tonic legend. Men become wolves. Strong- 
est and fiercest breed. Eat people up. 
Frighten everybody. Ravage countryside. 
Beautiful myth ! Teaches power is greatest 
thing. Might gives right. Force over all!" 

[52] 



APOLOGUE 

*' Certainly, Highly Exalted," said 
Schmuck humbly, "it is a wonder-beautiful 
myth, full of true idealism. But what if 
it lost its purely mythical quality and be- 
came historical, actual, contemporaneous? 
Would it not change its aspect ? Would not 
people object to it? Might not the Wer- 
wolf get himself disliked?" 

"Perhaps," answered MWAW, smiling 
till his eyes almost disappeared. "But what 
diflference? Ignorant people, weak people, 
no account. Werwolf is stronger race, there- 
fore superior. Objections silly." 

"True, Exaltedness," said Schmuck. "It 
is the first duty of every ideal to realize it- 
seK. Yet in this particular matter the com- 
plaints are very bitter. It is said that great 
numbers of helpless men and women have 
been devoured, their children torn in pieces, 
their farms and gardens ravaged, and their 
houses destroyed by Werwolves quite re- 
cently. Shall I deny it?" 

"No," growled MWAW. "Don't be a fool. 
It is too well known. We know it ourselves. 

[53] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

We are the woK-pack. Don't deny it. Jus- 
tify it. That's your business. Earn your 
salary." 

Schmuck was as nearly embarrassed as it 
is possible for a professor to be. 

"Willingly, Exaltedness," he stammered. 
"But the trouble is to find the basic argu- 
ments. Even among the Hivites and the 
Hittites, I have not yet discovered any 
traces " 

"Nonsense," snapped MWAW. "Hivites 
and Hittites are dead. WE are alive. Justify 
US. Think!" 

"Pardon, Highly Exalted," said Schmuck, 
"I was trying to think. The first justifica- 
tion that occurs to me is the plea of neces- 
sity — biological necessity." 

"It sounds good," grunted MWAW. "But 
vague. Explain." 

"A biological necessity is a thing that 
knows no law. It is the inward urge of 
every living creature to expand its own life 
without regard to the lives of others. It 
is above morality, because whatever is 
necessary is moral." 

[541 



APOLOGUE 

"Excellent," exclaimed MWAW. "We 
have felt that ourselves. Continue." 

"Now, doubtless, the Highly Exalted are 
often hungry." 

"Always," interrupted MWAW, "say al- 
ways!" 

"Always being hungry," droned Schmuck, 
"the Highly Exalted may feel at certain 
times the craving for a certain kind of food 
in order to obtain a more perfect expan- 
sion. To need is to take. Is it not so?" 

"It is," said MWAW, "and we do. Find 
another argument." 

"Self-defense," replied Schmuck. 

"Too old," said MWAW. "Worn out. 
Won't go any more." 

"But as I shall put it. Highly Exalted 
will see a newness in it. The best way to 
defend oneself is by injuring others. Sheep, 
for example, when gathered in su£5cient 
numbers are the most dangerous animals 
in the world. The only way to be safe from 
them is to attack them and scatter them. 
Especially the small flocks, for that pre- 
vents their growing larger and becoming 

[551 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

more dangerous. Particularly should the 
sheep with horns be attacked. Sheep have 
no right to have horns. Wolves have none. 
But even the hornless sheep and the lambs 
should not be spared, for by rending them 
you may frighten and discourage the horned 
ones." 

"Capital," cried MWAW, springing up 
and pacing the arbor in excitement. "Just 
our own idea. Frightfulness increases force. 
We like to make people afraid. We feel 
stronger. Essence of Werwolf ery. Give an- 
other argument, excellent Schmuck. Think 
once more." 

"The Highly Exalted will forgive me. I 
cannot, momentarily, bring forth another." 

"What!" snarled an angry voice above 
the trembling professor. "Not think of the 
best argument of all ! Forget your creed ! 
Deny your faith ! Wretched Schmuck ! Who 
gave you a place .^^ Who feeds you.^ Who 
are WE.?" 

"The Lord's Anointed!" murmured 
Schmuck, falling on his knees. 

[56] 



APOLOGUE 

MWAW drew himself up, stiff as steel. 
His eyes blazed through their slits like 
coals of fire. 

"Right!" he cried. "Right at last. That 
is the great argument. Use it. WE are the 
Chosen of God. WE are his weapon, his 
vicegerent. Whatever WE do is a brave 
act and a good deed. Woe to the disobedi- 
ent!" 

He held out his hand and lifted the pro- 
fessor to his feet. 

"Stand up, Schmuck. You are forgiven. 
Take more beer. To-night I follow biologi- 
cal necessity. More work to do. But you 
go and tell people the truth." 

So Schmuck went. Whether he told the 
truth or not is uncertain. At all events, it 
was in different words. And the Werwolf- 
ery continued. / 



[57] 



Ill 

THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 



In the days immediately before and after 
the breaking of the war-tempest, the ser- 
vants of the United States Government in 
Europe were suddenly overwhelmed by a 
flood of work and care. The strenuous, in- 
cessant toil in the consulates, legations, and 
embassies acted somewhat as a narcotic. 
There was so much to do that there was no 
time to worry. 

The sense of an unmeasured calamity was 
present in the background of our thoughts 
from the very beginning. But it was not 
until later that the nature of the disaster 
grew clear and poignant. As month after 
month hammered swiftly by, the meaning 
and portent of the catastrophe emerged 
more sharply and penetrated our minds 
more deeply, stinging us awake. 

[61] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

A mighty nation which "rejected the 
dream of universal peace throughout the 
world as non-German" (the Crown Prince, 
Germany in Arms); a nation trained for 
war as a "biological necessity m which 
Might proves itself the supreme Right" 
(Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War); sl 
nation which had been taught that "fright- 
fulness" is a lawful and essential weapon in 
war (Von Clausewitz); and whose generals 
said, "Frankly, we are and must be bar- 
barians" (Von Diefurth, Hamburger Nach- 
richten), while their philosophers declared 
that "The German is the superior type of 
the species homo sapiens'' (Woltmann); a 
nation whose Imperial Head commended to 
his soldiers the example of the Huns, and 
proclaimed, "It is to the empire of the 
world that the German genius aspires" 
(Kaiser Wilhelm, Speech at Aix-la-Chapelle, 
June 20, 1902) — a nation thus armed, in- 
structed, disciplined, and demoralized had 
broken loose. Another Attila had come, 
with a new horde behind him to devastate 

[62] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

and change the face of the world. In the 
tumult and darkness which enfolded Eu- 
rope, the Werwolf was at large. We could 
hear his ululations in the forest. The cries 
of his victims grew louder, piercing our 
hearts with pity and just wrath. 

II 

But even when the most dreadful things 
are happening around you, the regular and 
necessary work of the world must be car- 
ried on. Your own particular ''chore" must 
be done as well as you can do it. 

As the trouble drew near and suddenly 
fell upon the world, the burden of enor- 
mously increased and varied duties pressed 
heavily upon the American representatives 
abroad. The first thing that we had to do 
was to make provision for taking care of 
our own people in Europe who were caught 
out in the storm and the danger. 

That was a practical job with unlimited 
requirements. No one, except those who 
had the distracting privilege of being in the 

[63] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

American diplomatic and consular service 
in the summer of 1914, knows how much 
work and how many kinds of work rushed 
down upon us in a moment. Banking, 
postal, and telegraph service, transporta- 
tion, hotel and boarding-house business, 
baggage express, the recovery of missing 
articles and persons, the reunion of curiously 
separated families, confidential inquiries, 
medical service (mainly mind-healing), and 
free consultation on every subject under 
the sun — all these different occupations, 
trades, and professions were not set down 
in our programme when we came to Europe, 
nor covered by the shm calf-bound volume 
of Instructions to Diplomatic Officers which 
was our only guide-book. But we had to 
learn them at short notice and practise 
them as best we could. No doubt we often 
acted in a way that was not strictly pro- 
tocolaire. Certainly we made mistakes. But 
it was better to do that than to sit like 
bumps on a log doing nothing. The immedi- 
ate affair in hand was to help our own folks 
who were in distress and difficulty and who 

[641 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

wanted to get home as quickly and as safely 
as possible. So we tried to do it, making 
use of the best means available, and pray- 
ing that heaven and our diplomatic col- 
leagues would forgive any errors or gaffes 
that we might make. We preserved a pro- 
found respect for etiquette and regularity. 
But our predominant anxiety was to get 
the things done that had to be done. 

Take an illustration. Excuse the personal 
references in it. 

From the very beginning it seemed clear 
to me that one of the greatest difficulties in 
the first days of war would be to secure a 
supply of ready money for American trav- 
ellers in flight. As a rule they carried little 
hard cash with them. Paper money would 
be at a discount; checks and drafts difficult, 
if not impossible, to negotiate in Holland. 
Moratoriums were falling everywhere as 
thick as leaves in Vallombrosa. 

So I went directly to my friend Foreign 
Minister Loudon, and asked him a plain 
question. 

"Would your Government be willing to 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

help us in getting American travellers' 
checks and drafts on letters of credit cashed 
if I should indorse them as American Min- 
ister?" 

[He answered as promptly as if the sug- 
gestion had already been formed in his own 
mind — as perhaps it had. 

"Certainly, and gladly! Those pieces of 
paper would be the best securities in the 
world — short-term notes of the American 
Government. If you will get the authority 
from Washington to indorse, the Bank of 
the Netherlands will honor the checks and 
drafts; and if the Bank hesitates the Na- 
tional Treasury will cash them." 

I cabled to the Department of State ask- 
ing permission to make the indorsements 
(a thing hitherto expressly forbidden by 
the instructions to diplomatic officers), and 
explaining that I would take in each case 
the best security obtainable, whether in the 
form of a draft on a letter of credit or a 
personal note of hand with satisfactory 
references, and that no money should be 

[66] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

drawn except for necessary living expenses 
and the cost of the journey home. The an- 
swer came promptly: "You have the au- 
thority to indorse." 

So a system of international banking be- 
tween two Governments was introduced. 
I believe it was absolutely a new plan. 
But it worked. 

Then another idea occurred to me. The 
letters of credit were usually drawn on 
London or Paris. In both cities a mora- 
torium was on. Why not make the drafts 
directly on New York? Why not call on 
the signer of the letter of credit for the 
money instead of calling on the addressee? 
This would cut out any possibility of diffi- 
culty from the moratorium. 

This also was a new method. But it seemed 
reasonable. We tried it. And it worked. A 
visiting committee of New York bankers 
to whom I related this experience later 
laughed immensely. They also made some 
remarks about "amateurs" and "audacity" 
which I would rather not repeat. But upon 

[67] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the whole they did not seem shocked be- 
yond recovery. 

So it happened, by good fortune, that 
there was never a day in The Hague when 
an American fugitive from the war, home- 
ward bound, could not obtain what cash 
he needed for him to live and to get to the 
United States. But not money to buy sou- 
venir spoons, or old furniture and pictures. 
"Very sorry," we explained, "but our 
Government is not dealing in antiquities 
at present. It is simply helping you to get 
home as quickly and comfortably as pos- 
sible. Please tell us how much money you 
need for board and passage-money and you 
shall have it." 

Except three or four chronic growlers and 
a few passionate antiquarian ladies, every- 
body took it good-humoredly and cheer- 
fully. I think they understood, though not 
always clearly, that our Government was 
doing more for its citizens caught out in a 
tempest than any other government in the 
world would have done. 

[68] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

When the Tennessee arrived in the latter 
part of August with $2,500,000 in gold for 
the same purpose, it was another illustra- 
tion of our Government's parental care and 
forethought. We received our share of this 
gold at The Hague. The first use we made 
of part of it was to take up the American 
checks and drafts on which the Bank of the 
Netherlands had advanced the money. Then 
we sent the paper to America for collection 
and repayment to the National Treasury. 
I have not the accounts here and cannot 
speak by the book, but I think I am not 
far out in saying that our loss on these 
transactions was less than five per cent of 
the total amount handled. And we banked 
for some very poor people, too ! 

I never had any idea, before the war 
broke out, how many of our countrymen 
and countrywomen there are roaming about 
Europe every summer, and with what a 
cheerful trust in Providence and utter dis- 
regard of needful papers and precautions 
some of them roam ! There were young 

[69] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

women travelling alone or in groups of two 
or three. There were old men so feeble that 
one's first thought on seeing them was: 
"How did you get away from your nurse ?" 
There were people with superfluous funds, 
and people with barely enough funds, and 
people with no funds at all. There were col- 
lege boys who had worked their way over 
and couldn't find a chance to work it back. 
There were art-students and music-students 
whose resources had given out. 

There was a very rich woman, plastered 
with diamonds, who demanded the free use 
of my garage for the storage of her auto- 
mobile. When I explained that, to my pro- 
found regret, it was impossible, because 
three American guest cars were already 
stored there and the place could hold no 
more, she flounced out of the room in high 
dudgeon. 

There was a lady of a different type who 
came to say, very modestly, that she had 
a balance in a bank at The Hague which 
she wanted to leave to my order for use in 

[70] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

helping people who were poor and deserv- 
ing. "Please make as sure as you can of 
the poverty," said she, "but take a chance, 
now and then, on the deserts. We can't 
confine our kindness to saints." This gift 
amounted to two or three thousand dollars, 
and was the foundation of the Minister's 
private benevolence fund, which proved so 
useful in later days and of which a remnant 
has been left for my successor. 

An American wrote to us from a little 
village in a remote province of the Nether- 
lands saying that his remittances from 
home had not arrived and that he was 
penniless. He added by way of personal 
description: "My social position is that 
of a Catholic priest with nervous prostra- 
tion." We helped him and he proved to 
be all right. 

A rising comic-opera star, of engaging 
appearance and manners (American), who 
was under a temporary financial obscura- 
tion because her company in Holland had 
broken up, came to ask us to assist her in 

[71] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

getting to Germany, where she had friends 
and hoped to find work. We did it with 
alacrity. Then she wrote asking us to for- 
ward certain legal papers in connection 
with a divorce which she contemplated. 
We did it. Then she sent us some of her 
newspaper articles and a lot of clippings 
from German journals, requesting us to 
transmit them in the Legation pouch to 
America. This we politely declined, with 
the plea of non possumus. Whereupon she 
was furious and denounced us to the Ger- 
man authorities and the German-American 
press. 

An American lady whose husband was 
dying in Hamburg came in desperate dis- 
tress with her daughter, to beg us to aid 
them in getting to him. We found the only 
way that was open, a little-known route 
through the northeast corner of Holland, 
procured the necessary permits, and enabled 
the wife and daughter to reach his bedside 
before he died. 

A poor woman (with a nice little baby), 

[72] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

whose husband, a naturaHzed American, 
was "somewhere in Argentina," wanted to 
go to his family in one of the northwestern 
States. She had no money. We paid her 
expenses in The Hague until we could get 
into communication with the family, and 
then sent her home rejoicing. 

These are a few examples of the ever- 
recurring humor and pathos which touched 
our incessant grind of peace work in war 
times at The Hague. Thousands and thou- 
sands of Americans, real or presumptive, 
passed through the Legation — all sorts and 
conditions of men, asking for all kinds of 
things. 

Our house was transformed into an In- 
quiry Office and a Bureau for First Aid to 
the Injured. There was often a dense throng 
outside the front door, filling the street and 
reaching over into the park. Two Dutch 
boy scouts, capital fellows in khaki, volun- 
teered their assistance in keeping order, 
and stood guard at the entrance giving out 
numbered tickets of admission so that the 

[73] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

house would not be choked and all the work 
stopped. 

You see, Holland was the narrow neck of 
the bottle, and the incredible multitudes 
of Americans who were scattered about in 
Germany, Austria, Russia, and parts of 
Switzerland, came pouring out our way. 
There was no end to the extra work. Many 
a night I did not get my clothes off, but 
took a bath and breakfast in the morning 
and went ahead with the next day's busi- 
ness. No eight-hour day in that establish- 
ment ! 

It would have been impossible to hold on 
and keep going but for the devotion and 
industry of the entire Legation staff, and 
the splendid aid of the volunteers who 
came to help us through. Professor George 
Grafton Wilson, of Harvard, was our Coun- 
sellor in International Law. Professor Philip 
M. Brown, of Princeton, former Minister 
to Honduras, gave his valuable service. 
Professor F. J. Moore, of the Massachusetts 
Institute of Technology, took charge of the 

[74] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

registration bureau. Hon. Charles H. Sher- 
rill, former Ambassador to the Argentine, 
and Charles Edward Russell, the Socialist, 
and his wife, were among our best workers. 
Alexander R. Gulick was at the head of 
the busy correspondence department. Van 
Santvoord Merle-Smith, Evans Hubbard, 
and my son ran the banking department. 
These are only a few names among the many 
good men and women who helped their 
country for love. 

My library was the Diplomatic Office, to 
which the despatches and the passports 
came; the Conference Chamber, where all 
vexed questions were discussed and decided; 
the Court of Appeal, where people who 
thought they had not received fair treat- 
ment could present their complaints; and 
the Consolation Room, where the really 
distressed, as well as the slightly hysterical, 
came to tell their troubles. Some of them 
were tragic and some comic. The most agi- 
tated and frightened persons were among 
the fat commercial men. The women, as a 

[75 1 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

rule, were fine and steady and cheerful, 
especially the American-born. They met 
the adventure with good sense and smiling 
faces; asked with commendable brevity for 
the best advice or service that we could 
give them; and usually took the advice and 
were more grateful for the service than it 
deserved. 

So the days rolled on, full of infinitely 
varied cares and labors; and every after- 
noon, about five o'clock, the whole staff 
with a dozen or a score of our passing 
friends, went out under the spreading 
chestnut-tree in the back garden for a 
half-hour of tea and talk. It was all very 
peaceful and democratic. We were in neu- 
tral, friendly Holland. The big, protecting 
shield of "Uncle Sam" was over us, and 
we felt safe. 

m 

Yet how near, how fearful, was the fierce 
reality of the unpardonable war ! Belgium 
was invaded by the Germans, an hour or 

[76] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

two away from us. At any moment their 
troops might be tempted to take the short 
cut through the narrow strip of Dutch 
territory which runs so far down into Bel- 
gium; and then the neutrahty of Holland 
would be gone ! The little country would 
be part of the battle-field. Holland has al- 
ways been resolved to fight any invader. 

All through August and September, 1914, 
that fear hung over the Dutch people. It 
recurred later again and again — whenever 
a movement of German troops came too 
close to the borders of Holland; whenever 
a newspaper tale of impending operations 
transpired from Berlin or London. Once or 
twice the anxiety rose almost to a popular 
panic. But I noticed that even then the 
stock-market at Amsterdam remained calm. 
Now, the Dutch are a very prudent folk, 
especially the bankers. Therefore I con- 
cluded that somebody had received strong 
assurances both from Germany and Great 
Britain that neither would invade the 
Netherlands provided the other abstained. 

[77] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

But all the time there was that dreadful 
example of the "scrap of paper" — the 
treaty which had been no protection for 
Belgium — to shake confidence in any pledge 
of Germany. And all the time the news 
from just beyond the border grew more and 
more horrible. Towns and villages were 
looted and burned. Civilians were massa- 
cred; women outraged; children brought 
to death. Heavy fines and ransoms were 
imposed for slight or imaginary offenses. 
(They amounted to more than $40,000,000 
in addition to the "war contribution" ex- 
acted, which by August, 1917, had reached 
$288,000,000.) Churches were ruined. 
Priests were shot. The country was 
stripped and laid waste. All the scruples 
and rules by which men had sought to mod- 
erate the needless cruelties of war were 
mocked and flung aside. Ruin marked the 
track of the German troops, and terror ran 
before their advance. 

On August 19 Aerschot was sacked and 
150 of its inhabitants killed. On the 20th 

[78] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

Andenne met the same fate and the num- 
ber of the slain was 250. On the 23d Di- 
nant was wrecked and more than 600 men 
and women were murdered. On the 25th 
the university Hbrary at Louvain was set 
on fire and burned. The pillage and devas- 
tation of the city and its environs con- 
tinued for ten days. More than 2,000 
houses were destroyed, and more than 100 
civilians were butchered. Time would fail 
me to tell of the industrious little towns 
and the quaint Old World hamlets that 
were wrecked, or of the men and women 
and young children who were tortured, and 
had trial of mockings and bonds and im- 
prisonment, and were slain by the sword 
and by fire. Is it not all set down by sworn 
witnesses in the great gray book of the 
Kingdom of Belgium, and in the blue book 
of the committee of which Lord Bryce was 
the head.^ Have I not heard with my own 
ears the agony of those whose parents 
were shot down before their eyes, whose 
children were slain or ravished, whose wives 

[79] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

or husbands were carried into captivity, 
whose homes were made desolate, and who 
themselves barely escaped with their lives ? 

Find an explanation for these Belgian 
atrocities if you can. What if a few shots 
were fired by ignorant and infuriated civil- 
ians from the windows of houses? It has 
not been proved. But even if it were, it 
would be no reason for the martyrdom of 
a whole population, for the destruction of 
distant and unincriminated towns, for the 
massacre of evidently innocent persons. 

Was it the drink found in the cellars of the 
houses that made the German officers and 
soldiers mad.^ Perhaps so. But that makes 
the case no better. It was stolen drink. 

Was it the carrying out of the cold-blooded 
policy of "f rightfulness" as a necessary 
weapon of war? That is the wickedest ex- 
cuse of all. It is really an accusation. The 
probable truth of it is supported by what 
happened later, when the Germans came 
to Poland, and when the Turks, their allies 
and pupils in the art of war, slaughtered 

[80] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

800,000 Armenians or drove them to a 
slow, painful death. It means just what 
the title of this article says. The Werwolf 
was at large. 
The first evidence of this spirit in the 
German conduct of the war that came to 
my personal knowledge was on August 
25. Two or three days before, our Ameri- 
can Con£ul-General in Antwerp, which was 
still the temporary seat of the Belgian 
Government, had written to me saying that 
he was absolutely destitute and begging 
me to send him some money for the relief 
of his family and other Americans who were 
in dire need. The Tennessee was lying off 
the Hook of Holland at that time, and there 
were several of our splendid army officers 
ready and eager for any service. One of the 
best of them. Captain Williams, offered 
himself as messenger, and I sent him in to 
Antwerp, with three thousand dollars in 
gold in a belt around his waist, on August 
24. He had a hard, slow journey, but he 
went through and delivered the money. 

[81] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

That very night, while he was in the 
city, a Zeppehn air-ship, the first of its 
devihsh tribe to get into action, sailed 
over sleeping Antwerp dropping bombs. 
No military damage was done. But hun- 
dreds of private houses were damaged and 
sixty destroyed. One bomb fell on a hos- 
pital full of wounded Belgians and Ger- 
mans. Scores of innocent civilians, mostly 
women and children, were killed. ''In a 
single house," writes an eye-witness, "I 
found four dead: one room was a chamber 
of horrors, the remains of the mangled 
bodies being scattered in every direction." 

Mark the exact nature of this crime. The 
dropping of bombs from aircraft is not 
technically illegal. The agreement of the 
nations to abandon and prohibit this method 
of attack for five years unfortunately ex- 
pired by limitation of time in 1912 and was 
not renewed. But the old-established rules 
of war among civilized nations have for- 
bidden and still forbid the bombardment of 
populous towns without due notice, in order 

[82] 



THE WERWOLF AT LAKGE 

that the non-combatants may have a chance 
to find refuge and safety. This German mon- 
ster of the air came unannounced, in the 
dead of night, and, having wrought its hell- 
ish surprise, vanished into the darkness 
again. This was a crime against interna- 
tional law as well as a sin against humanity. 

My captain returned to The Hague the 
next morning, bringing his report. He had 
seen the horror with his own eyes. More: 
with the care of a true officer he had made 
a map of the course taken by the air-ship 
in its flight over the city. That map showed 
beyond a doubt that the aim of the ma- 
rauder was to destroy the principal hospital^ 
the hotel where the Belgian Ministers lived, 
and the palace in which the King and Queen 
with their children were sleeping, 

I cabled the facts to Washington at once, 
and sent the map with a fuller report the 
next day. I felt deeply (and ventured to 
express my feeling) that the United States 
could, and ought to, protest against this 
clear violation of the law of nations — this 

[83] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

glaring manifestation of a spirit which was 
going to make this war the most cruel and 
atrocious known to history. The foreboding 
of a return to barbarism has been fulfilled, 
alas, only too abominably ! 

In every step of that downward path Ger- 
many has led the way, by the perfection 
of her scientific methods applied to a devil- 
ish purpose. 

Take, for example, the use of poisonous 
gas in warfare. This was an ancient weapon, 
employed long before the beginning of the 
Christian era. It had been abandoned by 
civilized nations, and was prohibited by 
one of the Hague conventions, for a period 
of five years. But that period having ex- 
pired, and the convention being only a 
"scrap of paper," Germany revived the 
ancient deviltry in a more scientific form. 
On April 22, 1915, she sent the yellow 
clouds of death rolling down upon the 
trenches of Ypres, where the British de- 
fended the last city of outraged Belgium. 
The suffocating horrors of that hellish 

[84] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

method of attack are beyond description. 
The fame of this achievement of spectacled 
barbarism belongs to the learned servants 
of the predatory Potsdam gang. But we 
cannot blame the Allies if they were 
forced reluctantly to take up the same 
weapon in self-defense. 

IV 

The real character and the inhuman eiffect 
of the German invasion were brought home 
to us, and made painfully clear to our eyes 
and our hearts, by the amazing tragic spec- 
tacle of the flood of refugees pouring out of 
Belgium. 

It began slowly. When the quaint frontier 
town of Vise, surrounded by its goose-farms, 
was attacked and set on fire on August 4, 
there were many families from the neigh- 
borhood who fled to Holland. When Liege 
was captured on the 7th after a brave de- 
fense, and its last fort fell on the 15th, there 
were more fugitives. When Brussels was 
occupied without resistance on the 20th 

[85] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

there were still more. As the invasion spread 
westward and southward, engulfing city 
after city in widening waves of blood, the 
tide of terror and flight rose steadily. It 
reached its high-water mark when Ant- 
werp, after the Germans had pounded its 
outer and inner circle of forts for nine days, 
was bombarded on October 7 and captured 
on the 18th. 

Nothing like that sad, fear-smitten ex- 
odus has been seen on earth in modern 
times. There was something in it at once 
fateful, trembling, and irresistible, which 
recalled De Quincey's famous story of The 
Flight of a TaHar Tribe. No barrier on the 
Holland border could have kept that flood 
of Belgian refugees out. They were an 
enormous flock of sheep and lambs, har- 
ried by the WerwoK and fleeing for their 
lives. 

But Holland did not want a barrier. She 
stood with open doors and arms, offering 
an asylum to the distressed and persecuted. 

I do not believe that any country has 

[86] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

ever made a better record of wise, steady, 
and true humanitarian work than Holland 
made in this matter. It is not necessary to 
exaggerate it. Naturally, Belgium and Great 
Britain bore by far the largest part of the 
financial burden of caring for the refugees. 
Regular subsidies were guaranteed for this 
purpose. But Holland gave freely and gen- 
erously what was more important: a prompt 
and sufficient welcome and shelter from the 
storm; abundant supplies of money for im- 
mediate needs, food and clothing, a roof 
and a fire; personal aid and care, nursing, 
medical attendance — all of which these be- 
wildered exiles needed desperately and at 
once. 

This is not the place, nor the time, in 
which to attempt a full report of the hu- 
mane task which was suddenly thrown 
upon Holland by the deadly doings of the 
German Werwolf in Belgium, nor of the 
way in which that task was accepted and 
carried out. I shall note only a few things 
of which I have personal knowledge. 

[87] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Going along the railway line which leads 
to Antwerp, I saw every train literally 
packed with fugitives. They had come, not 
in organized, orderly companies, but in 
droves — tens of thousands, hundreds of 
thousands. They were dazed and confused, 
escaping from they knew not what, car- 
ried they knew not whither. It is well for 
the poet to say: 

"Be not like dumb, driven cattle"; 

but what can you do in a case hke this 
except run from hell as fast as you can 
and take the first open road.^^ 

The station platforms were crowded with 
folks in motley garments showing signs of 
wear and tear. Their possessions were done 
up in bags and shapeless bundles, rolled in 
pieces of sacking, old shawls, red-and- white- 
checkered table-cloths. The men, with 
drawn and heavy faces, waited patiently. 
The women collected and watched their 
restless flocks. The baby tugged at its 
mother's breast. The little sister carried the 

[88] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

next-to-baby in her arms. The boys, as 
usual, wandered everywhere undismayed 
and peered curiously into everything. 

The crowds were not disorderly or tur- 
bulent; there was no shrieking or groaning. 
There were, of course, some of the baser 
sort in the vast multitude that fled to Hol- 
land — street rowdies and other sons of 
Belial from the big towns, women of the 
pavements, and other wretched by-prod- 
ucts of our social system. How could it be 
otherwise in a throng of about a million, 
scooped up and cast out by an evil chance ? 
But the great bulk of the people were 
decent and industrious — ^no more angels 
than the rest of us can show per thou- 
sand. 

I remember a very respectable old couple, 
cleanly though plainly clad, waiting at the 
station of a small village, looking in vain 
for a chance to board the train. Every- 
thing was full except the compartment re- 
served for us. We opened the door and 
asked them to get in. The old gentleman 

[891 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

explained that he was a landscape-gardener, 
living in a small villa with a small garden, 
in a suburb of Antwerp. 

"It was a beautiful garden, monsieur," he 
said with glistening eyes. "It was arranged 
with much skill and care. We loved every 
bush, every flower. But one evening three 
German shells fell in it and burst. The good 
wife and I" (here a wan smile) "thought 
the climate no longer sanitary. We ran 
away that night on foot. Much misery for 
old people. Last night we slept in a barn 
with hundreds of others. But some day we 
go back to restore that garden. N^est-ce 
pas vrai, cherie f 

Rosendaal, the Dutch custom-house town 
on the way to Antwerp, claims 15,000 in- 
habitants. In two nights at least 40,000 
refugees poured into that place. Every 
house from the richest to the poorest opened 
its doors in hospitality. The beds and the 
floors were all filled with sleepers. A big 
vacant factory building was fitted with im- 
provised bunks and straw bedding. Two 

[90 1 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

thousand five hundred people were lodged 
there. Open-air kitchens were set up. The 
burgomaster and aldermen and doctors and 
all the other "leading citizens" took off 
their coats and worked. The best women 
in the place were cooking, serving tables, 
nursing, making clothes, doing all they 
could for their involuntary guests. 

In the picturesque old city of Bergen-op- 
Zoom — famous in history — I saw the same 
thing. There a large tent-camp had been 
set up for the overflow from the houses. It 
was like a huge circus of distress. The city 
hall was turned into an emergency store- 
house of food: the vaulted halls and cham- 
bers filled with boxes, bags, and barrels. 
When I went up to the bureau of the burgo- 
master, his wife and daughters were there, 
sewing busily for the refugees. 

I visited the main hospital and the an- 
nexes which had been established in the 
schoolhouses. Twice, as we climbed the 
steep stairs, we stood aside for stretchers 
to be carried past. They bore the bodies of 

[91] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

people who had died from exposure and 
exhaustion. 

In one ward there were a score of the 
most ancient women I have ever seen. 
They had made the flight on foot. God 
knows how they ever did it. One of them 
was so weak that she could not speak, so 
short of breath that she could not lie down. 
As she sat propped with pillows, rocking 
slowly to and fro and coughing, coughing, 
feebly coughing her life out, she looked a 
thousand years old. Perhaps she was, if 
suffering measures years. 

Another room was for babies born in the 
terror and the flight. A few were well- 
looking enough; but most of them were 
pitiful scraps and tatters of humanity. 
They were tenderly nursed and cared for, 
but their chance was slender. While I was 
there one of the little creatures shuddered, 
breathed a tiny sigh, and slipped out of a 
world that was too hard for it. 

It was part of my unofficial duty to visit 
as many as possible of the private shel- 

[92] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

ters and hospitals and workrooms and the 
pubKc camps, because the Belgian Relief 
Committee and other friends in New York 
had sent me considerable sums of money 
to use in helping the refugees. In the care- 
ful application of these funds I had the 
advice of Mr. Th. Stuart, President of the 
"Netherlands Relief Committee for Bel- 
gian and Other Victims of War," and of 
Baron F. van Tuyll van Serooskerken, a 
great friend of mine, whom the Queen had 
appointed as General Commissioner to 
oversee all the public refugee camps. 

Three of these, Nunspeet, Ede, and Uden, 
were improvised villages, with blocks of 
long community houses, separate dormi- 
tories for the unmarried men and for the 
single women, a dining-hall, a chapel, one 
or two schoolhouses, a recreation-hall, a 
house of detention for refractory persons, 
one hospital for general cases, and another 
for infectious diseases. It was all built of 
wood, simple and primitive, but as com- 
fortable as could be expected under the 

[93] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

conditions. The chief danger of the camps 
was idleness. In providing work to combat 
this peril the Rockefeller Foundation and 
the committee of the English "Society of 
Friends" were of great assistance. Each of 
these camps had accommodation for about 
10,000 people. 

The fourth camp was at the ancient city 
of Gouda, famed for its great old church 
with stained-glass windows and for its ex- 
cellent cheese and clay pipes. This camp 
was the earliest and one of the most in- 
teresting that I visited. It was established 
in a series of exceptionally large and fine 
greenhouses, which happened to be empty 
when the emergency came. Somebody — I 
think it was the clever Burgomaster Yssel 
de Scheppe and his admirable wife — had 
the good idea of utilizing them for the refu- 
gees. It seemed a curious notion, to raise 
human plants under glass. But it worked 
finely. The houses were long and lofty; 
they had concrete floors and broad con- 
crete platforms where the "cubicles" for 

[9M 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

the separate families could easily be erected; 
steam heat, electric light, hot and cold 
water were already "laid on"; it was quite 
palatial in its way. A few wooden houses, 
a laundry, a kitchen, a carpenter-shop for 
the men, and so on, were quickly run up. 
There was a bowling-alley and a playground 
and a schoolhouse. The people could go to 
church in the town. Soon twenty-five hun- 
dred exiles were living in this queer but 
comfortable camp. 

But it was evident that this refugee life, 
even under the best conditions that could 
be devised, was abnormal. There was not 
room in the industrial life of Holland for 
all these people to stay there permanently. 
Besides, they did not want to stay, and that 
counts for something in human affairs. The 
question arose whether it might not be 
wise to let them go home. Not to send them 
home, you understand. That was never 
even contemplated. But simply to allow 
them to return to their own country, at 
least in the regions where the fury of war 

[95] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

had already passed by. I suggested to Mr. 
Stuart that before you allow poor folks to 
''go home," you ought to know whether 
they have a "home" to go to. So we took 
my motor in October and made a little 
tour of investigation in Belgium. 
That was a strange and memorable jour- 
ney. The long run in the dripping autumn 
afternoon along the Antwerp Road, where 
the miserable fugitives were still trudging 
in thousands; the search for lodgings in the 
stricken city, where most of the streets 
were silent and deserted as if the plague 
had passed there, and the only bustling life 
was in the central quarter, where "the 
field-gray ones" abounded; the closed shops, 
the house-fronts shattered by shells, the 
great cathedral standing in the moonlight, 
unharmed as far as we could see, except 
for one shell which had penetrated the 
south transept, just where Rubens's "De- 
scent from the Cross" used to hang before 
it was carried away for safety — I shall never 
forget those impressions. 

[96] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

The next morning, provided with permits 
which the German MiHtary Commandant 
had very courteously given us, we set out 
on our tour. The journey became still more 
strange. The beautiful trees of the suburbs 
were razed to the ground, the little villas 
stood empty, many of them half-ruined. 
(Perhaps one of them belonged to our 
friend the landscape-gardener.) We could 
see clearly the emplacements for the big 
German guns, which had been secretly 
laid long before the war began, concealed 
in cellars and beneath innocent-looking 
tennis-courts. The ring-forts surrounding 
Antwerp were knocked to pieces, their huge 
concrete gateways, their stone facings, their 
high earthworks, all battered out of shape. 

Town after town through which we passed 
lay half-destroyed or in complete ruins. 
Wavre, Waelhem, Termonde, Duffel, Lierre, 
and many smaller places were in various 
stages of destruction, burned or shattered 
by shell fire and explosives. The heaps of 
bricks and stones encumbered the streets 

[97] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

SO that it was hard to pick our way through. 
The smell of decaying bodies tainted the 
air. The fields had been inundated in the 
valleys; the water was subsiding; here and 
there corpses lay in the mud. Old trenches 
everywhere; thousands of rudely heaped 
graves, marked by two crossed sticks; 
miles on miles of rusty barbed-wire de- 
fenses, with dead cows or horses entangled 
in them, slowly rotting, haunted by the 
carrion crows. 

Yet there were some people in the coun- 
tryside. Now and then we saw a woman 
or an old man digging in field or garden. 
We stopped at the front yard of a little 
farmhouse, where the farmer's wife stood, 
and asked her some directions about the 
road. She gave them cheerfully, though 
the house at her back was little more than 
a mass of ruins. 

"Were you here in the fighting.^" we 
asked. 

"But no, messieurs," she answered with 
a short laugh. "If I had been here, I should 

[98] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

not be here, I ran away to Holland and re- 
turned yesterday to my house. But how 
shall I creep in?" She pointed over her 
shoulder to the pile of bricks. "I am not a 
cat or a rat." 
They are indomitable, those Flemish peo- 
ple. At Lierre we were very hungry and 
searched vainly for an inn or a grocery. At 
last in one of the streets we saw a little 
baker-shop. The upper story was riddled 
and broken. But the shop was untouched, 
the window-shade half up, and underneath 
we could see two loaves of bread. We went 
in. The bare-armed baker met us. 
*'Can you sell us a little bread .^" 
"But certainly, messieurs, that is what I 
am here for. Not the window loaves, how- 
ever; I have a fresh loaf, if you please. 
Also a little cheese, if you will." 
'*Were you here in the fighting .f^" 
"Assuredly not! It was impossible. But I 
hurried back after three days. You see, 
messieurs, some people were returning, and 
me — I am the Baker of Lierre.^' 

[99] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

He said it as if it were a title of nobility. 

At Malines (Meehelen) the devastation 
appeared perhaps more shocking because 
we had known the russet and gray old 
city so well in peaceful years. Many of the 
streets were impassable, choked with debris. 
One side of the great Square was knocked 
to fragments. The huge belfry, Saint Rom- 
baud's Tower, wherein hangs the famous 
carillon of more than thirty bells, was bat- 
tered but still stood firm. The vast cathedral 
was a melancholy wreck of its former beauty 
and grandeur. The roof was but a skeleton 
of bare rafters; the side wall pierced with 
gaping rents and holes; the pictured win- 
dows were all gone; the sunlight streamed 
in everywhere upon the stone floor, strewn 
with an indescribable confusion of shat- 
tered glass, fallen beams, fragments of 
carved wood, and broken images of saints. 
u A little house behind the Church of Saint 
Peter and Saint Paul, the roof and upper 
story of which had been pierced by shells, 
seemed to be occupied. We knocked and 

[100] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

went in. The man and his wife were in the 
sitting-room, trying to put it in order. 
Much of the furniture was destroyed; the 
walls were pitted with shrapnel-scars, but 
the cheap ornaments on the mantel were 
unbroken. In the ceiling was a big hole, 
and in the floor a pit in which lay the head 
and fragments of a German shell. I asked 
if I might have them. "Certainly," an- 
swered the man. "We wish to keep no sou- 
venirs of that wicked thing." 



I do not propose to describe the magnifi- 
cent work of the "Commission for Relief 
in Belgium." It is too well known. Besides, 
it is not my story; it is the story of Her- 
bert Hoover, who made the idea a reality, 
and of the crew of fine and fearless young 
Americans who worked with him. England 
and France furnished more money to buy 
food; but the United States, in addition to 
money and wheat, gave the organization, 
the personal energy and toil and tact, the 

[1011 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

assurance of fair play and honest dealing, 
without which that food could never have 
gotten into Belgium or been distributed 
only to the civil population. 

Holland was the door through which all 
the supplies for the C. R. B. had to pass. 
The first two cargoes that went in I had 
to put through personally, and nearly had 
to fight to do it. My job was to keep the 
back of the United States against that door 
and hold it open. It was not alw^ays easy. 
I was obliged to make protests, remon- 
strances, and polite suggestions about what 
would happen if certain things were not 
done. 

Once the Germans refused to give any 
more "safe-conduct passes" for relief ships 
on the return voyage. Of course, that would 
have made the work impossible. A German 
aircraft bombed one of these ships. I put 
the matter mildly but firmly to the German 
Minister, "This work is in your interest. It 
relieves you from the burden of feeding a 
lot of people whom you w^ould otherwise 

[102] 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

be bound to feed. You want it to go on?" 
"Yes, certainly, by all means." "Well, 
then, you will have to stop attacking the 
C. R. B. ships or else the work will have to 
stop. The case is very simple. There is only 
one thing to do." He promised to take the 
matter up with Berlin at once. In a couple 
of days the answer came: "Very sorry. 
Regrettable mistake. Aviator could not see 
markings on side and stern of ship. Advise 
large horizontal signs painted on top deck 
of ships, visible from above. Safe-conducts 
will be granted." 

When this was told to Captain White, a 
clever Yankee sea-captain who had gen- 
eral charge of the C. R. B. shipping, he 
laughed considerably and then said: "Why, 
look-a-here, I'll paint those boats all over, 
top, sides, and bottom, if that'll only keep 
the Germans from sinkin' 'em." 

From a million and a half to two million 
men, women, and children in Belgium and 
northern France were saved from starving 
to death by the work of the C. R. B. The 

[103] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

men who were doing it had a chance to 
observe the conditions in those invaded 
countries. They came to the Legation at 
The Hague and told simply what they 
knew. We got the real story of Miss Cavell, 
cruelly done to death by "field-gray" oflS- 
cers. We got full descriptions of the system 
of deporting the civil population — a system 
which amounted to enslavement, with a 
taint of "white slavery" thrown in. When 
the Belgian workmen were suddenly called 
from their homes, herded before the Ger- 
man commandant, and sent away, they 
knew not whither, to work for their op- 
pressor, as they were entrained they sang 
the "Marseillaise." They knew they would 
be punished for it, kept without food, put 
to the hardest labor. But they sang it. They 
knew that France, and England too, were 
fighting for them, for their rights, for their 
liberty. They believed that it would come. 
They were not conquered yet. 

Here I must break off my story for a 

[ 104 1 



THE WERWOLF AT LARGE 

month. It has not been well told. Words 
cannot render the impression of black hor- 
ror that lay upon us, the fierce indignation 
that stirred us, during all those months 
while we were doing the tasks of peace in 
peaceful Holland. 

We were bound to be neutral in conduct. 
That was the condition of our service to 
the wounded, the prisoners, the refugees, 
the suflferers, of both sides. We lived up to 
that condition at The Hague without a 
single criticism from anybody — except the 
subsidized German-American press in the 
United States. 

But to be neutral in thought and feehng 
— ah, that was beyond my power. I knew 
that the predatory Potsdam gang had 
chosen and forced the war in order to 
realize their robber-dream of Pan-German- 
ism. I knew that they were pushing it with 
unheard-of atrocity in Belgium and northern 
France, in Poland and Servia and Armenia. 
I knew that they had challenged and at- 
tacked the whole world of peace-loving 

1105] j 



FIGHXmG FOR PEACE 

nations. I knew that America belonged to 
that imperilled world. I knew that there 
could be no secure labor and no quiet sleep 
in any land so long as the Potsdam Wer- 
wolf was at large. 



[106] 



IV 

GERMANIA MENDAX 



GERMANIA MENDAX 



The truth about the choosing, beginning, 
and forcing of this abominable war has 
never been told by official Germandom. 

Now and then an independent German 
like Maximilian Harden is brave enough to 
blurt it out: ''Of what use are weak excuses ? 
We willed this war, . . . willed it because 
we were sure we could win it." {Zukunft, 
August, 1914.) But in general the official 
spokesmen of Germany keep up the claim 
that their country was attacked and forced 
to fly to arms to protect herself. 

"Gentlemen," said the Imperial Chancellor 
to the members of the Reichstag on August 
4, 1914, "we are now acting in seK-defense. 
Necessity knows no law. Our troops have 
occupied Luxembourg and have possibly 
already entered on Belgian soil. [A little 
earlier in the speech he confessed that they 

[109] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

had also invaded France.] Gentlemen, that 
is a breach of international law. The French 
Government has notified Brussels that it 
would respect Belgian neutrality as long as 
the adversary respected it. But we know 
that France stood ready for an invasion. 
France could wait. We could not. . . . The 
injustice we commit — I speak openly — we 
will try to make good as soon as our miU- 
tary aims have been attained. He who is 
menaced as we are, and is fighting for his 
all, can only consider the one and best way 
to strike." * (The word which Herr von 
Bethmann-Hollweg actually used was durch- 
hauen, which means "to hew, or hack, a 
way through.") 

It was against such weak excuses as this, 
against the vain pretext that the German 
war-lords were the attacked instead of the 
attackers, that Herr Harden made the 
frank protest which I have quoted above. 

Meantime the falsehood of the tales of 

*0ut of several translations of this speech I have chosen as 
the fairest the one printed by the American Association for In- 
ternational Conciliation, November, 1914, No. 84. 

[110] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

French preparation for invasion and of 
actual violations of German territory has 
been exposed by the evidence of Germans 
themselves. General Freytag-Loringhoven, 
in his essay on "The First Victories in the 
West/' has shown that the French high com- 
mand was taken off its guard by the swift 
stab through Luxembourg and Belgium, 
and could not get the Fifth Army Corps to 
the Douai-Charleroi line until August 22. 
The municipal authorities of Nuremburg 
have declared that they have no knowledge 
of the dropping of bombs on that city by 
French aviators. 

The falsehood of the Chancellor's promise 
that Germany would *'make good her in- 
justice" to Belgium after attaining her 
military aims is foreshadowed to-day. (Sep- 
tember 27.) The newspapers of this morning 
contain a semi-official press statement in 
regard to a note verbale handed by the For- 
eign Secretary to the Papal Nuncio at Ber- 
lin. Germany, if this statement is correct, 
now proposes to spoil the future of Bel- 

[1111 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

gium by splitting the nation into two ad- 
ministrative districts, Flemish and Walloon, 
thus injecting the poison-germ of disunion 
into the body politic. She also demands 
*'the right to develop her economic inter- 
ests freely in Belgium, especially in Ant- 
werp ^^ and a guarantee that "any such 
menace as that which threatened Germany 
[from Belgium !] in 1914 shall be excluded." 
This is the German idea of making good an 
injustice by committing a fresh injury. It 
is in the style of a highwayman who says 
to his victim: "I will reward you by letting 
you go. But I must keep the big pearl, and 
you must permit me to break both your 
arms. * 

* For further confirmation of these ideas see the Memoir of the 
late General von Bissing, former Governor-General of Belgium, 
published by the Bergisch-Mdrkische Zeitung, May 18, 1917, and 
by Das Grbssere Deutschland, May 19, 1917. 

"History now shows us that, neither prior to, nor at the outset 
of hostilities, were people able to rely to any great extent on a 
neutral Belgium, and, should we attach a certain importance to 
these historic truths, we shall not, however, on the conclusion of 
peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a 
neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, 
or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another 
kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence 
of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is 

[112] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

Somewhere I have read a Latin line — the 
name of whose author has shpped my 
memory — which seems to fit the case per- 
fectly: ^'Quidquid non audet in historia 
Germania mendaxT^* 

a 

THE AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA 

In the latter part of 1916 the New York 
Times published an admirable series of 
articles, signed ''Cosmos," on The Basis of 

seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to 
prevent this, viz. : by the policy of force, and it is force that should 
achieve the result that the population, at present still hostile, 
should become used to German rule and submit to it. Moreover, 
it will be necessary, through a peace assuring us the annexation 
of Belgium, that we should be able to protect, as we are now com- 
pelled to do, the German subjects who have settled in this country, 
and the protection we shall be enabled to afford them will be of 
special service to us in the struggle about to take place in the 
world's market. It is only by reigning over Belgium that we 
shall be able to utilize (verwerten), with a view to German inter- 
ests, Belgian capital in savings and the numerous Belgian joint- 
stock companies already existing in enemy countries. We ought 
to have control over the important enterprises that Belgian capi- 
tal has founded in Turkey, the Balkans, and China. . . ." 

* I have taken the references which follow, as far as possible, 
from Ofidal Diplomatic Documents, edited by E. von Mack, The 
MacmiUan Co., New York, 1916. The comments and footnotes in 
this volume are untrustworthy, but the texts are presumably cor- 
rect, and it is polite to judge the Germans from their own mouths. 
The book is quoted as Off, Dip. Doc, 

[113] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Durable Peace,* With almost every state- 
ment of this learned and able writer I found 
myself in thorough accord. But the fourth 
sentence of the first article I could not 
accept. 

''The question as to who or what power," 
writes Cosmos, "is chiefly responsible for 
the last events that immediately preceded 
the war has become for the moment one of 
merely historical interest." 

On the contrary, it seems to me a question 
of immediate, vital, decisive interest. It 
certainly determined the national action of 
France, Great Britain, and Italy. They did 
not believe that Germany and Austria were 
acting in self-defense. If that had been the 
case, Italy at least would have been bound 
by treaty to come to the aid of her part- 
ners in the Triple Alliance, which was purely 
a defensive league. But she formally de- 
clined to do so, on the ground that ''the 
war undertaken by Austria, and the con- 

* These articles are now published in book form by the 
Scribners. 

[114] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

sequences which might result, had, in the 
words of the German Ambassador himself, 
a directly aggressive object." {Off, Dip. 
Doc, p. 431.) The same ground was taken 
in the message of the President of the 
French Repubhc to the Parhament on 
August 4, 1914 (0/. Dip. Doc, p. 444), 
and in the speech of the British Prime 
Minister, August 6, the day on which the 
Parliament passed the first appropriation 
for expenses arising out of the existence of 
a state of war {British Blue Booh). 
The conviction that the ruhng militaristic 
party in Germany, abetted by Austria, 
bears the moral guilt of thrusting this war 
upon the world as the method of setthng 
international diflBculties which could have 
been better settled by arbitration or con- 
ference, is a very real thing at the present 
moment. It is shared by the Entente Allies 
and the United States. It is one of those 
"imponderables" which, as Bismarck said 
long ago, must never be left out of account 
in estimating national forces. It will hold 

[115] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the Allies and the United States together. 
It will help them to win the war for peace 
under conditions for Germany which may 
not be "punitive," but which certainly must 
be reformatory. 

Understand, I do not imagine or main- 
tain that the primary or efficient causes of 
this war are to be found in any things 
that happened in 1914 or 1913. They are 
inherent in false methods of government, 
in false systems of so-called national policy, 
in false dealing with simple human rights 
and interests, in false attempts to settle 
natural problems on an artificial basis. 

All nations have a share in them. They go 
back to Austria's annexation of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina in 1908; to the Congress of 
Berlin in 1878; to the Franco-Prussian War 
in 1870; to the Prusso-Austrian War in 
1866; to the conquest of Constantinople by 
the Turks in 1453. Yes, they go back fur- 
ther still, if you like, to the time when Cain 
killed Abel ! That was the first assertion of 
the doctrine that "might makes right." 

[116] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

But the occasional cause of this war, the 
ground on which it was brought to a head 
and let loose by Germany, was the Austrian 
ultimatum to Servia, presented on July 23, 
1914, at 6 p. M. 

This remarkable state-paper, so harsh in 
its tone, so imperious in its demands, that 
it called forth the disapproval even of a 
few bold German critics, was apparently 
meant to be impossible of acceptance by 
Servia, and thus to serve either as the in- 
strument for crushing the little country 
which stood in the way of the Berlin- 
Baghdad-Bahn, or as a torch to kindle the 
great war in Europe. I do not propose to 
trace its history and consequences in de- 
tail. I propose only to show, by fuller proofs 
than have hitherto been available, that 
Germany must share the responsibility for 
this flagitious and incendiary document. 

On July 25, 1914, the German Ambassador 
at Petrograd handed an ofiicial note verbale 
to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs 
which stated that " The German Government 

[117] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian 
note before it was presented, and exercised 
no influence upon its contents,''^ (Off, Dip. 
Doc, p. 173.) Similar communications were 
presented in France and England. 
I This barefaced denial that the German 
Government knew what would be in the 
Austrian ultimatum, or had anything to do 
with the framing of it, was a palpable false- 
hood. It was discredited at the time. The 
antecedent incredibility of the statement 
has been well set forth by Mr. James N. 
Beck, in his vigorous book, The Evidence in 
the CaseJ^ New evidence has come in. I in- 
tend here to present briefly and arrange in 
a new order the facts which prove to a moral 
certainty that the German Government 
knew beforehand what the content and in- 
tent of the Austrian ultimatum would be, 
and what consequences it would probably 
entail. 
(1) Austria was the most intimate ally of 

* The Evidence in the Case, Putnams, New York, 1914, pp. 
31-46. 

[118] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

Germany, admittedly dependent upon her 
big friend for backing in all international 
affairs. The German Ambassador in Vienna, 
Herr von Tschirsky, and the Austrian Am- 
bassador in Berhn, Count Szogyeny, were 
in close consultation with the Governments 
to which they were accredited during the 
weeks that followed the crime of Serajevo, 
June 28-July £3. It is absolutely incredible 
that Austria should not have consulted her 
big friend in regard to the momentous 
step against Servia, altogether impossible 
that Germany should not have insisted upon 
knowing what her smaller friend was doing 
in a matter of such importance to them 
both. You might as well imagine that the 
board of managers of a subsidiary railway 
would block out a new poHcy without con- 
sulting the directors of the main hne. 

(2) On July 5, 1914, it appears that a 
secret conference was held at Potsdam at 
which high officials of the German and 
Austrian Governments were present. It is 
not possible to give their names with cer- 

[1191 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

tainty — ^not yet, perhaps never — ^because 
these gentlemen come and go in the dark. 
But the fact of the meeting was brought 
out pubhcly in the speech of Deputy Haase 
in the Reichstag, July 19, 1917, and not 
contradicted. Whatever may have been the 
ostensible object of this conference, it is im- 
possible to beheve that the most important 
affairs in the world for Austria and Ger- 
many at that moment, namely the nature 
of the ultimatum to Servia and the possible 
eventuahty of a European war, were not 
discussed, and perhaps decided. 
\ (3) On July 15, 1914, the Itahan Am- 
bassador to Turkey, Signor Garroni, had 
an interview with the German Ambassador 
to Turkey, Baron Wangenheim, who had 
just come back from a visit to Berlin. The 
German diplomat said that he had been 
present at a conference where it had been 
decided that the ultimatum to Servia was 
to be made of such a nature that it could 
not be accepted, and that this would be the 
provocation of the war which would prob- 

[120] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

ably ensue. Shortly afterward these state- 
ments were narrated by Signer Garroni to 
Mr. Lewis Einstein, attache of the Ameri- 
can Embassy at Constantinople, who care- 
fully noted them in his diary. 

(4) On July 22, 1914, the British Am- 
bassador in Berlin sent a despatch to his 
Government which indicated for the first 
time clearly the attitude which the German 
Government had decided to take. I there- 
fore quote it in full. 

''Last night I met Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, and the forthcoming Aus- 
trian demarche at Belgrade was alluded to 
by his Excellency in the conversation that 
ensued. His Excellency was evidently of 
opinion that this step on Austria's part 
would have been made ere this. He insisted 
that the question at issue was one for set- 
tlement between Servia and Austria alone, 
and that there should be no interference 
from outside in the discussions between 
those two countries. He had therefore con- 
sidered it inadvisable that the Austro- 

[121] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Hungarian Government should be ap- 
proached by the German Government on 
the matter. He had, however, on several 
occasions, in conversation with the Servian 
Minister, emphasized the extreme impor- 
tance that Austro-Servian relations should 
be put on a proper footing. 

''Finally, his Excellency observed to me 
that for a long time past the attitude 
adopted toward Servia by Austria had, in 
his opinion, been one of great forbearance." 
(Off. Dip, Doc, p. 56.) 

This shows that Germany knew what 
Austria was doing, approved her plan, and 
had resolved that there "should be no in- 
terference from outside in the discussion" 
— in other words, Germany would allow 
no other nation to prevent Austria from 
doing what she liked to Servia. Could Ger- 
many have taken this absolutely "com- 
mittal" position if she had been ignorant 
of what Austria intended to do ? 

(5) On July 23, 1914, the crushing Aus- 
trian ultimatum, having been prepared in 

[122] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

the dark, was sent to Servia and delivered 
in Belgrade at 6 p. m. On the same day, and 
almost certainly at an earlier hour, the Ger- 
man Chancellor prepared a circular con- 
fidential telegram to the Ambassadors at 
Paris, London, and Petrograd, instructing 
them to tell the Governments to which they 
were accredited that 'Hhe action as well as 
the demands of the Austro-Hungarian Gov- 
ernment can be viewed only as justifiable. 
... [If the demands were refused] nothing 
would remain for it^ but to enforce the same by 
appeal to military measures, in regard to 
which the choice of means must be left to it,^^ 
{Off, Dip. Doc, p. 60.) 

Is it credible that the German Govern- 
ment would have pronounced a judgment 
so important, so far-reaching in its foreseen 
consequences, if it had had no previous 
knowledge of the "action and demands" of 
Austria ? 

(6) On July 23, 1914, the French Minister 
at Munich telegraphed his Government as 
follows: "The President of the Council said 

[123] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

to me to-day that tho Austrian ultimatum, 
the contents of which were known to him, 
seemed to him couched in terms which 
Servia could accept, but that, nevertheless, 
the actual situation appeared to him seri- 
ous." {Off, Dip. Doc, p. 59.) 

How did this gentleman in Munich come 
to know about the ultimatum, while the 
gentlemen in Berlin professed ignorance ? 
. (7) On July 25, 1914, the Russian Gov- 
ernment was officially informed that: ^^ Ger- 
many as the ally of Austria naturally sup- 
ports the claims made by the Vienna Cabinet 
against Servia, which she considers justi- 
fied:' (Off. Dip. Doc, p. 173.) 

This was a very grave declaration, in 
view of the public announcement which 
the Russian Government had made on the 
same day: *' Recent events and the despatch 
of an ultimatum to Servia by Austria- 
Hungary are causing the Russian Govern- 
ment the greatest anxiety. The Govern- 
ment are closely following the course of 
the dispute between the two countries, to 

[124] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

which Russia cannot remain indifferent^^ 
{Off, Dip. Doc, p. 170.) 
Certainly Germany would not have come 
to the serious decision of giving unqualified 
support to the claims of Austria as against 
the expressed interests of Russia, unless 
she had long known and had full time to 
consider those claims and what they would 
involve. 

(8) On July 30, 1914, the British Ambas- 
sador in Vienna telegraphed to his Govern- 
ment: "I have private information that the 
German Ambassador knew the text of the 
Austrian ultimatum to Servia before it was 
despatched, and telegraphed it to the Ger- 
man Emperor. I know from the German 
Ambassador himself that he indorses every 
line of it." (Off, Dip, Doc, p. 330.) 

(9) Count Bernstorff, German Ambassa- 
dor at Washington, pubhshed an article in 
The Independent, New York, September 7, 
1914. In this article he answered, oflBcially, 
several questions. The first question was: 
Did Germany approve in advance the Aus- 

[125] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

trian ultimatum to Servia? The answer 
was: " Yes, Germany's reasons for doing so 
are the following, cfec." 

(10) The German Government has itself 
acknowledged that it was consulted by 
Austria in regard to the attitude to be taken 
toward Servia, and the possibiHty of en- 
suing war if Russia intervened to protect 
the life of her little sister state. Germany 
accepted the responsibihty and pledged sup- 
port. ''With all our heart we were able to 
agree with our ally's estimate of the situation, 
and assure him that any action considered 
necessary to end the movement directed against 
the conservation of the monarchy would meet 
with our approval (German Official White 
Book, p. 4; Off. Dip, Doc, p. 551.) 

This is a carte blanche of a kind which no 
great government could possibly give to 
another without a definite understanding of 
what it involved. 

Here the summary of the evidence that 
Austria was not playing "a lone hand" 
ends — at least until further confidential 

[126] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

documents and information about secret 
meetings are dug up. 

Meantime the Imperial German Govern- 
ment maintains its plea of "not guilty." 
It still denies all previous knowledge of, 
and all part in, the nefarious Austrian ulti- 
matum to Servia which precipitated the 
world war. 

The denial is both impudent and men- 
dacious. 

''Credat Judceus ApellaT* 
III 

THE RUSSIAN MOBILIZATION 

It has been loudly asserted and persist- 
ently maintained by the Potsdam gang 
that the cause of this abominable war was 
the mobilization of Russia in preparation 
to maintain the sovereignty of her little 
sister state Servia if necessary. "'Germany," 
it is said, ''earnestly desired, from the 
purest of motives, to 'localize the conflict'" 

[127] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

— which means in plain words to let Aus- 
tria deal with Servia as she hked, without 
interference — ^rather a one-sided proposi- 
tion, considering the relative size of the 
two parties in the benevolently urged 
single combat. "But Russia rashly inter- 
fered with this beautiful design by declar- 
ing that she could not remain indifferent 
to the fate of a small nation of kindred 
blood, and by calling up troops to prevent 
any wiping out of Servia by Austria, to 
whom Germany had already given carte 
blanche and promised full support. This was 
a wicked threat against the life and liberty 
of Germany. This was an action which ren- 
dered the great war inevitable." So say the 
German authorities. 

The subtitle of the oflScial German White 
Book reads: ''How Russia and Her Ruler 
Betrayed Germany's Confidence and Thereby 
Made the European War J' * 

* I quote from a copy of the original pamphlet, given to me 
with the compliments of Herr von Miiller, German Minister at 
The Hague. Professor von Mach in his Off. Dip. Doc. does not 
reproduce this title-page. 

[ 128 ] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

This is the Potsdam contention in regard 
to the cause of the war. The documents in- 
dicate that it is a false contention, based 
upon suppressions of the truth. This is what 
I intend to show. 

I hold no brief for the late Imperial Rus- 
sian Government. Doubtless it was shady 
in its morals and tricky in its ways. 

The telegrams recently discovered by an 
excellent American journalist, Mr. Herman 
Bernstein, and published in the New York 
Herald, show that the late Czar Nicolas and 
the still Kaiser Wilhelm were plotting to- 
gether, a very few years ago, to make a 
secret "combine" which should control the 
world. When that plan failed, no doubt the 
vast power and resources of Russia, under 
an absolute imperial Government, were re- 
garded by the equally autocratic Govern- 
ment of Germany with jealousy and dis- 
trust, not to say fear. No doubt Russia was 
an actual and formidable obstacle to the 
Pan-German purpose of getting Servia out 
of the path of the Berlin-Baghdad-Bahn. 

[129] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Grant all this. Pass over, also, the inter- 
minable and inextricable dispute about the 
precise meaning and application of the 
terms ''mobilization," "partial mobiliza- 
tion," ''complete mobilization," "precau- 
tionary measures," ''Kriegsgefahr,'' and so 
on. That is an unfathomable morass wherein 
many deceptions hide. In that controversy 
each opponent always charges the other 
with lying, and a wise neutral doubts both. 

It seems to be true — mark you, I only say 
it seems — that the first great European 
Power to order partial mobilization was 
Austria, July 26, 1914. {Off. Dip. Doc, p. 
197.) On July 28 the order for complete 
mobilization was signed, war was declared 
against Servia (pp. 272, 273), and on July 
29 Belgrade was bombarded (p. 354). 

On July 29 Russia ordered partial mobil- 
ization in the districts of Odessa, Kief, 
Moscow, and Kasan, and declared that she 
had no aggressive intention against Ger- 
many. {Off. Dip. Doc, p. 294.) The Russian 
preparations obviously had relation only 

[130] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

to Austria's war on Servia which was al- 
ready under way. 

On July 30 Germany had effected her 
"covering dispositions" of troops along the 
French border, from Luxembourg to the 
Vosges, part of which by chance T saw in 
June (see p. 36^.)? ^^d on the same day the 
Berlin semi-official press announced that a 
complete mobilization had been ordered. 
{Off. Dip, Doc, pp. 324, 342.) This an- 
nouncement was contradicted and with- 
drawn later on the same day by govern- 
ment orders. 

On July 31, a^ 1 a, m., the Austrian order 
of complete mobilization, which was signed 
on the 28th, was issued, (Off. Dip. Doc, 
p. 356.) Later in the same day the Russian 
Government ordered complete mobiliza- 
tion and the German Government pro- 
claimed a state of Kriegsgefahr, "war- 
danger." {Off. Dip. Doc, pp. 356-357.) At 
seven o'clock in the evening of the same 
day Germany sent an ultimatum to France, 
and at midnight an ultimatum to Russia. 

[131] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

On August 1 she declared war on Russia, 
and on August 3 she declared war on 
France, having previously invaded French 
territory and sent her army through neu- 
tral Luxembourg. 

Now in all this the German Government 
tries to make it appear that it was simply 
acting on the defensive, taking necessary 
steps to guard against the peril threatened 
by the military measures of Russia. 

The falsity of this pretense is easily shown 
from two facts: First, the Russian Govern- 
ment was all the time pleading for a peace- 
ful settlement of the Austro-Servian dis- 
pute, by arbitration, or by a four-power 
conference. Second, definite offers were 
made to halt the Russian military mea- 
sures at once on conditions most favor- 
able to Austria, if Austria and Germany 
would agree to an examination by the 
Great Powers of Austria's just claims on 
Servia. 

On the first point, I do not propose to 
retell the long story of the efforts supported 

[132] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

by France, England, Italy, and Russia 
herseK, to get Germany to consent to some 
plan, any plan, which might avert war 
by an appeal to reason and justice. To 
these efforts Germany answered in effect 
that she could not ''coerce" her ally Aus- 
tria. 
But one document in this line seems to 
me particularly interesting — even pathetic. 
It is a telegram sent by the late Czar 
Nicolas to his Imperial Cousin, Kaiser 
Wilhelm. It is dated July 29, 1914, and 
reads as follows: 

"Thanks for your telegram which is con- 
ciliatory and friendly, whereas the official 
message presented to-day by your Am- 
bassador to my Minister was conveyed in a 
very different tone. I beg you to explain 
this divergency. It would he right to give 
over the Austro-Servian problem to The Hague 
Tribunal, I trust in your wisdom and friend- 
ship, 

''Nicolas." 

[133] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

This telegram is not contained in the Ger- 
man White Booh. But Professor von Mach 
gives it in his Official Diplomatic Documents 
(p. 596). 

I have been unable to find in any book, 
pamphlet, or collection of papers a trace 
of the Kaiser's answer. Probably he did not 
send one. 

On the second point I propose to quote 
only the three definite proposals which 
were before the German Government on 
July 31, 1914. 

Sir Edward Grey, the British Secretary 
for Foreign Affairs, had been trying with 
the cordial help of the Russian Foreign 
Minister, Sazonof, and the President of the 
Council of France, M. Viviani, to formulate 
a plan of averting general hostilities which 
would meet the approval of Germany. 

(1) On July 29 Sir E. Grey had an official 
conversation with the German Ambassador 
in London and laid before him a proposal 
in regard to the halting of military measures, 
described in the following words: 

"It was of course too late for all mihtary 

[134] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

operations against Servia to be suspended. 
In a short time, I supposed, the Austrian 
forces would be in Belgrade, and in occu- 
pation of some Servian territory. But even 
then it might be possible to bring some medi- 
ation into existence if Austria, while saying 
that she must hold the occupied territory until 
she had complete satisfaction from Servia, 
stated that she would not advance further, 
pending an effort of the Powers to mediate 
between her and Russia.'' {Off. Dip. Doc, 
p. 307.) This proposal was telegraphed to 
Berlin on the same day, and from there to 
Vienna. So far as I know no answer to it 
has ever been received, though King 
George V warmly supported the proposal 
in a personal telegram (July 30) to Prince 
Henry of Prussia, and begged him to urge 
it upon the Kaiser. 

(2) On July 30 Sazonof in the name of 
the Czar presented to the German Am- 
bassador at Petrograd, and telegraphed for 
delivery to the Foreign Offices at Berlin 
and Vienna, the following proposal: 

"If Austria, recognizing that the Austro- 

[135] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Servian question has assumed the character 
of a question of European interest, declares 
herself ready to eliminate from her ulti- 
matum points which violate the sovereign 
rights of Servia, Russia undertakes to stop 
her military preparations.'' (Off, Dip. Doc, 
p. 341.) 

The German Foreign Minister von Jagow, 
without waiting to consult Vienna, replied 
''that he considered it impossible for Aus- 
tria to accept the proposal." {Ibid., p. 342.) 
Austria said nothing at all ! 

(3) On July 31 practically the same pro- 
posal, modified on the suggestion of Sir E. 
Grey and M. Viviani, was renewed by 
Russia. As presented to Berlin and Vienna 
it read as follows: 

''7/ Austria consents to stay the march of 
her troops on Servian territory; and if, recog- 
nizing that the Austro-Servian conflict has 
assumed the character of a question of Euro- 
pean interest, she admits that the Great Powers 
may examine the satisfaction which Servia 
can accord to the Austro-Hungarian Govern- 
ment without injury to her rights as a sov- 

[136] 



GERMANIA MENDAX 

ereign State or her independence, Russia 
undertakes to maintain her expectant atti- 
tude r {Off, Dip. Doc, p. 370.) 

No answer from Austria, who had ordered 
a general mobilization at one o'clock in the 
morning of that day ! 

No answer from Germany, except the 
prompt proclamation of Kriegsgefahr, and 
the declaration of war on Russia on 
August 1 ! 

Thus three successive opportunities of 
putting a stop to further military prepara- 
tions of Russia on the simple condition that 
Austria would go no further, but be con- 
tent with what she already had occupied 
as a guarantee for reparation from Servia 
— three golden occasions of preserving the 
peace of Europe — were brushed aside by 
Germany practically without consideration. 

Yet the marvellous people at Potsdam go 
on saying that it was the Russian military 
preparation that brought this war down on 
the world ! — that Germany always wanted 
peace, and worked for it ! 

Why then did she not accept the prof- 

[137] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

fered chance of staying the progress of 
Russian preparations when it lay within 
her power to do so by hf ting a finger ? 

Because she did not wish the chance. 
Because she wished Austria to go on with 
the subjugation of Servia. Because she 
wished Russia to be forced to go on with 
her measures to intervene for the rescue 
of Servia from extinction. Because she 
wished herseK to go on with her design of 
putting her own incomparable military 
machine at work to force her will on 
Europe. Because she wished to have a 
false excuse to cover her own guilt in mak- 
ing the war by saying: "Russia did it." 

The Potsdam gang forgot one thing. 
Most Uars forget something. 

They forgot that by refusing the oppor- 
tunity for peaceful settlement which would 
have removed their excuse for making war, 
they would furnish the proof that their 
excuse was false. 



[138] 



A DIALOGUE ON PEACE BETWEEN A 
HOUSEHOLDER AND A BURGLAR 



A DIALOGUE ON PEACE BETWEEN 

A HOUSEHOLDER AND A 

BURGLAR 

The house was badly wrecked by the 
struggle which had raged through it. The 
walls were marred, the windows and 
mirrors shattered, the pictures ruined, the 
furniture smashed into kindling-wood. 

Worst of all, the faithful servants and 
some of the children were lying in dark 
corners, dead or grievously wounded. 

The Burglar who had wrought the damage 
sat in the middle of the dining-room floor, 
with his swag around him. It was neatly 
arranged in bags, for in spite of his mad- 
ness he was a most methodical man. One 
bag was labelled silverware; another, jewels; 
another, cash; and another, souvenirs. There 
was blood on his hands and a fatuous smile 
on his face. 

[141] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

"Surely I am a mighty man," he said to 
himself, "and I have proved it! But I am 
very tired, as well as kind-hearted, and I 
feel that it is now time to begin a Con- 
versation on Peace." 

The Householder, who was also something 
of a Pacifist on appropriate occasions, but 
never a blind one, stood near. Through 
the brief lull in the rampage he overheard 
the mutterings of the Burglar. 

"Were you speaking to me?" he asked. 

"As a matter of fact," answered the 
Burglar, "I was talking to myself. But 
it is the same thing. Are we not brothers.'^ 
Do we not both love Peace .^ Come sit 
beside me, and let us talk about it." 

"What do you mean by Peace," said 
the Householder, looking grimly around 
him; "do you mean all this.'^" 

"No, no," said the Burglar; "that is — er 
— not exactly ! 'AH this' is most regrettable. 
I weep over it. If I could have had my 
way unopposed it would never have hap- 
pened. But until you sit down close beside 

[142] 



A DIALOGUE ON PEACE 

me I really cannot tell you in particular 
what I mean by that blessed word Peace. 
In general, I mean something like the 
status quo ante hel " 

"In this case," interrupted the House- 
holder, "you should say the status quo 
ante furtum — not helium [the state of things 
before the burglary, not before the war]. 
You are a mighty robber — not a common 
thief, but a most uncommon one. Do you 
mean to restore the plunder you have 
grabbed ? " 

"Yes, certainly," replied the Burglar, in 
a magnanimous tone; "that is to say, I 
mean you shall have a part of it, freely 
and willingly. I could keep it all, you know, 
but I am too noble to do that. You shall 
take the silverware and the souvenirs, I 
will take the jewels and the cash. Isn't 
that a fair division.'* Peace must always 
stand on a basis of equality between the 
two parties. Shake hands on it." 

The Householder put his hand behind his 
back, 

[ 143 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

"You insult me," said he. "If I were 
your equal I should die of shame. Waive 
the comparison. What about the damage 
you have done here ? Who shall repair it .^ " 

''All the world," cried the Burglar eagerly; 
''everybody will help — especially your big 
neighbor across the lake. He is a fool with 
plenty of money. You cannot expect me 
to contribute. I am poor, but as honest as 
my profession will permit. This damage 
in your house is not wilful injury. It is 
merely one of the necessary accompani- 
ments of my practice of burglary. You 
ought not to feel sore about it. Why do 
you call attention to it, instead of talking 
politely and earnestly about the blessings 
of Peace .^" 

"I am talking to you as politely as I 
can," said the Householder, moistening 
his dry lips, "but while I am doing it, I 

feel as if I were smeared with mud. Tell 
me, what have you to say about my chil- 
dren and my servants whom you have 
tortured and murdered ? " 

[144] 



A DIALOGUE ON PEACE 

"Ah, that," answered the Burglar, shrug- 
ging his shoulders and spreading out his 
hands, palms upward, so that he looked 
like a gigantic toad, " — that indeed is so 
very, very sad ! My heart mourns over it. 
But how could it be avoided ? Those foolish 
people would not lie down, would not be 
still. Their conduct was directly contrary 
to my system; see section 417, chapter 93, 
in my 'Great Field-Book of Burglary,' 
under the title 'Schrecklichkeit.' Perhaps 
in the excitement of the moment I went 
a little beyond those scientific regulations. 
The babies need not have been killed — 
only terrified. But that was a mere error 
of judgment which you will readily forgive 
and forget for the sake of the holy cause of 
Peace. Will you not ? " 

The Householder turned quickly and spat 
into the fireplace. 

'' Blasphemer," he cried, ''my gorge rises 
at you ! Can there be any forgiveness until 
you repent? Can there be any Peace in 
the world if you go loose in it, ready to 

[145] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

break and enter and kill when it pleases 
you? Will you lay down your weapons 
and come before the Judge?" 

The Burglar rose slowly to his feet, twist- 
ing up his mustache with bloody brass- 
knuckled hands. 

"You are a colossal ass," he growled. 
"You forget how strong I am, how much 
I can still hurt you. I have offered you a 
chance to get Peace. Don't you want it 
it?" 

"Not as a present from you," said the 
Householder slowly. "It would poison me. 
I would rather die a decent man's death." 

He went a step nearer to the Burglar, 
who quickly backed away. 

"Come," the Householder continued, "let 
us bandy compUments no longer. You are 
where you have no right to be. You can 
talk when I get you before the Judge. I 
want Peace no more than I want Justice. 
While there is a God in heaven and honest 
freemen still live on earth I will fight for 
both." 

[146] 



A DIALOGUE ON PEACE 

He took a fresh grip on his club, and the 
Burglar backed again, ready to spring. 

Through the dead silence of the room 
there came a loud knocking at the door. 
Could it be the big neighbor from across 
the lake ? 



[147] 



VI 

STAND FAST, YE FREE! 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 



From the outset of this war two things 
have been clear to me. 

First, if the war continued it was ab- 
solutely inevitable that the United States 
would be either drawn into it by the im- 
pulse of democratic sympathies or forced 
into it by the instinct of self-preservation. 

Second, the most adequate person in the 
world to decide when and how the United 
States should accept the great responsibility 
of fighting beside France and Great Britain 
for peace and for the American ideal of 
freedom was President Wilson. 

His sagacity, his patience, his knowledge 
of the varied elements that are blended 
in our nationality, his sincere devotion to 
pacific conceptions of progress, his un- 
wavering loyalty to the cause of liberty 
secured by law, national and international, 

[151] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

made him the one man of all others to 
whom this great decision could most safely 
be confided. 

The people of the United States believed 
this in the election of 1916. They trusted 
him sincerely then because *'he kept us 
out of the war" until the inevitable hour. 
No less sincerely do they trust him now 
when he declares that the hour has come 
when we must ''dedicate our lives and 
our fortunes, everything that we are and 
everything that we have" (President's 
Message to Congress, April 2, 1917), to 
defend ourselves and the world from the 
Imperial German Government, which is 
waging ''a warfare against mankind." 

In the quiet, but never idle, American 
Legation at The Hague there was an ex- 
cellent opportunity to observe and study 
the incredible blunders by which Germany 
led us, and the unspeakable insults and 
injuries by which she compelled us, to 
enter the war. 

Our adherence to the Monroe Doctrine 

[152] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

was, at first, an obstacle to that entrance. 
Believing that European governments ought 
not to interfere in domestic affairs on the 
American continents, we admitted the con- 
verse of that proposition, and held that 
America should not meddle with European 
controversies or conflicts. But we soon 
came to a realizing sense of the ominous 
fact that Germany was the one nation of 
Europe which openly despised and flouted 
the Monroe Doctrine as an outworn super- 
stition. Her learned professors (followed 
by a few servile American imitators) had 
poured ridicule and scorn upon it in un- 
readable books. Her actions in the West 
Indies and South America showed her con- 
tempt for it as a ''bit of American bluff." 
Gradually it dawned upon us that if France 
were crushed and England crippled our 
dear old Monroe Doctrine would stand 
a poor chance against a victorious and 
supercilious Imperial German Govern- 
ment. As I wrote to Washington in August, 
1914, their idea was to "lunch in Paris, 

[153] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

dine in London, and spend the night some- 
where in America." 

Another real barrier to our taking any 
part in the war was our sincere, profound, 
traditional love of peace. This does not 
mean, of course, that America is a coun- 
try of pacifists. Our history proves the con- 
trary. Our conscientious objections to cer- 
tain shameful things, like injustice, and 
dishonor, and tyranny, and systematic cru- 
elty, are stronger than our conscientious 
objection to fighting. But our national pol- 
icy is averse to war, and our national insti- 
tutions are not favorable to its sudden dec- 
laration or swift prosecution. 

In effect, the United States is a pacific 
nation of fighting men. 

What was it, then, that forced such a 
nation into a confiict of arms ? 

It was the growing sense that the very 
existence of this war was a crime against 
humanity, that it need not and ought not 
to have been begun, and that the only 
way to put a stop to it was to join the 

[154] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

Allies, who had tried to prevent its begin- 
ning, and who are still trying to bring it 
to the only end that will be a finality. 

It was also the conviction that the 
Monroe Doctrine, so far from being an 
obstacle, was an incentive to our entrance. 
The real basis of that doctrine is the right 
of free peoples, however small and weak, 
to maintain by common consent their own 
forms of government. This Germany and 
Austria denied. The issue at stake was no 
longer merely European. It was world- 
wide. 

The Monroe Doctrine could not be saved 
in one continent if its foundation was de- 
stroyed in another. The only way to save 
it was to broaden it. 

The United States, having grown to be 
a World Power, must either uphold every- 
where the principles by which it had been 
begotten and made great or sink into the 
state of an obese, helpless parasite. Its 
sister republics would share its fate. 

But more than this: it was the flagrant 

[ 155 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

and contemptuous disregard of all the 
principles of international law and common 
humanity by the Imperial German Govern- 
ment that alarmed and incensed us. The 
list of crimes and atrocities ordered in 
this war by the mysterious and awful 
power that rules the German people — 
which I prefer to call, for the sake of brevity 
and impersonality, the Potsdam gang — is 
too long to be repeated here. The levying 
of unlawful tribute from captured cities 
and villages; the use of old men, women, 
and children as a screen for advancing 
troops; the extortion of miUtary informa- 
tion from civilians by cruel and barbarous 
methods; the burning and destruction of 
entire towns as a punishment for the actual 
or suspected hostile deeds of individuals, 
and the brutal avowal that in this punish- 
ment it was necessary that "the innocent 
shall suffer with the guilty" (see the letter 
of General von Nieber to the burgomaster 
of Wavre, August 27, and the proclamation 
of Governor-General von der Goltz, Sep- 

[156] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

tember 2, 1914); the introduction of the 
use of asphyxiating gas as a weapon of 
war (at Ypres, April 22, 1915); the poison- 
ing of wells; the reckless and needless de- 
struction of priceless monuments of art 
like the Cathedral of Reims; the deliberate 
and treacherous violation of the Red Cross, 
which is the sign of mercy and compassion 
for all Christendom; the bombardment of 
hospitals and the cold-blooded slaughter 
of nurses and wounded men; the sinking 
of hospital ships with their helpless and 
suffering company — all these, and many 
other infamies committed by order of the 
Potsdam gang made the heart of America 
hot and angry against the power which 
devised and commanded such brutality. 
True, they were not, technically speaking, 
crimes directed against the United States. 
They did not injure our material interests. 
They injured only our souls and the world 
in which we have to live. They were vivid 
illustrations of the inward nature of that 
German Kultur whose superiority, the 

[ 157 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

German professors say, ''is rooted in the 
unfathomable depths of its moral con- 
stitution." {Deutsche Reden in Schwerer 
Zeit, II, p. 23.) 

But there were two criminal blunders 
— or perhaps it would be more accurate 
to call them two series of obstinate and 
stupid offenses against international law 
— by which the Potsdam gang directly 
assailed the sovereignty and neutrality 
of the United States and forced us to 
choose between the surrender of our na- 
tional integrity and a frank acceptance 
of the war which Germany was waging, 
not only against our principles and in- 
terests, but against the things which in 
our judgment were essential to the wel- 
fare of mankind and to the existence of 
honorable and decent relations among the 
peoples of the world. 

The first of these oflFenses was the cynical 
and persistent attempt to take advantage 
of the good nature and unsuspiciousness of 
the United States for the estabhshment of 

[158] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

an impudent system of German espionage; 
to use our territory as a base of conspiracy 
and treacherous hostilities against coun- 
tries with which we were at peace; and to 
lose no opportunity of mobilizing the privi- 
leges granted by "these idiotic Yankees" 
(quotation from the military attache of the 
Imperial German Embassy at Washing- 
ton) — including, of course, the diplomatic 
privilege — to make America unconsciously 
help in playing the game of the Potsdam 
gang. 

The second of these offenses was the 
illegal, piratical submarine warfare which 
the Potsdam gang ordered and waged 
against the merchant shipping of the 
world, thereby destroying the lives and 
the property of American citizens and 
violating the most vital principle of our 
steadfast contention for the freedom of 
the sea. 

The message of the President to Congress 
on April 2, 1917, marked these two offenses 
as the main causes which made it impos- 

[159] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

sible for the United States to maintain 
longer an official attitude of neutrality 
toward the German Government, which 
*'did what it pleased and told its people 
nothing." The President generously de- 
clared that the source of these offenses 
*'lay not in any hostile feehng or purpose 
of the German people toward us." That 
was a magnanimous declaration, and we 
sincerely hope it may prove true. 

But practically the difficulty lies in the fact 
that at the present hour several millions of the 
German people stand in arms, on land that 
does not belong to them, to maintain the pur- 
pose and continue the practices of the Potsdam 
gang. It is a pity, but it is true. The only 
way to get at the gang which chose and forced 
this atrocious war is to go through the armed 
people who still defend that choice and the 
atrocities which have emphasized it. 

Forgiveness must wait upon repentance. 
Repentance must be proved by restitution 
and reparation. Any other settlement of 
this world conffict would be a world 

[160] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

calamity. For America and for all the 
Allies who are fighting for a peace worth 
having and keeping, the watchword must 
be: Stand fast, ye free ! 

II 

The ofiFenses against the neutrality of 
the United States which v/ere instigated 
and financed by the Potsdam gang were 
enumerated by the Committee on Foreign 
Affairs of the House of Representatives in 
the first week of April, 1917, and amounted 
to at least twenty-one distinct crimes or 
unfriendly acts, including the furnishing 
of bogus passports to German reservists 
and spies, the incitement of rebellion in 
India and in Mexico, the preparation of 
dynamite outrages against Canada, the 
placing of bombs in ships saihng from 
American ports, and many other ill-judged 
pleasantries of a similar character. 

The crown was put on this series of 
blundering misdeeds by the note of Jan- 
uary 19, 1917, sent from the German For- 

[161] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

eign OflSce (under cover of our diplomatic 
privilege, of course) to the German Min- 
ister in Mexico, directing him to prepare 
an alliance with that country against the 
United States in the event of war, urging 
him to use Mexico as an agent to draw 
Japan into that alliance, and offering as 
a bribe to the Mexicans the possession of 
American territory in Texas, New Mexico, 
and Arizona. (See War Message and Facts 
Behind It, p. 13. Published by the Com- 
mittee on Public Information, Washington, 
Government Printing Office, 1917.) 

The fact is, we have only just begun to 
understand the real nature of the German 
secret service, which works with, and either 
under or over, the diplomatic service. 

It is certainly the most highly organized, 
systematic, and expensive, and at the 
same time probably the most bone-headed 
and unscrupulous, secret service in the 
world. 

Its powers of falsification and evasion 
are only exceeded by its capacity for 

[162] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

making those mistakes which spring from 
a congenital contempt for other people. 

At The Hague I had numerous oppor- 
tunities of observing and noting the work- 
ings of this peculiar system. The story of 
many of them cannot be publicly told 
without violating that reserve which I 
prefer to maintain in regard to confiden- 
tial communications and private affairs 
in which the personal reputation of in- 
dividuals is involved. But there are two 
or three experiences of which I may write 
freely without incurring either self-reproach 
or a just reproach from others. They are 
not at all sensational. But they seemed 
at the time, and they seem still, to have 
a certain significance as indications of the 
psychology of the people with whom we 
were then in nominal friendship. 

Three requests were made to me for the 
forwarding of important communications 
to Brussels under cover of the diplomatic 
privilege of the American Legation. The 
memoranda of the dates and so on are in 

[ 163 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the Chancellery at The Hague, so I cannot 
refer to them. But it is certain that the 
requests came shortly after the beginning 
of the war, in the first or second week of 
August, 1914, and the content and pur- 
port of them are absolutely clear in my 
memory. 

The first request was from Berlin for the 
transmission of a note to the Belgian Gov- 
ernment, renewing the proposition which 
the Potsdam gang had made on August 
2: namely, that Belgium should permit the 
free passage of German troops through her 
neutral ground on condition that Germany 
would pay for all damage done and that 
Belgian territory would not be annexed. 
(Off, Dip. Doc, p. 402.) King Albert had 
already replied, on August 3, to this prop- 
osition, saying that to permit such a pas- 
sage of hostile troops against France would 
be "a flagrant violation of international 
law" and would '* sacrifice the honor of 
the nation." (Off. Dip. Doc, p. 421.) After 
such an answer it did not seem to me that 

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STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

the renewal of the dishonorable proposal 
was likely to have a good effect. Yet the 
Berhn note was entirely correct in form. 
It merely offered a chance for Belgium to 
choose again between peace with the friend- 
ship of Germany and dishonor attached, 
and war in defense of the neutrality to 
which she was bound by the very treaties 
(1831, 1839) which brought her into being. 
' I had no right to interpose an obstacle to 
the repetition of Belgium's first heroic 
choice. I pointed out that, not being ac- 
credited to the Belgian Government, I 
was not in a position to transmit any 
communication to it. But I was willing to 
forward the note to my colleague the Amer- 
ican Minister in Brussels, absolutely with- 
out recommendation, but simply for such 
disposal as he thought fit. Accordingly the 
note was transmitted to him.* 

What Whitlock did with it I do not know. 
What answer, if any, Belgium made I do 

* My colleague. Honorable James W. Gerard, Ex-Ambassador 
to Germany, has referred to this in his very interesting book. 
My Four Years in Germany, p. 136. > 

[165] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

not know. But I do know that she stood 
to her guns and kept her honor intact and 
immortal. 

The second request was of a different 
quahty. It came to me from the Imperial 
German Legation at The Hague. It was 
a note for transmission to the Belgian 
Government, beginning with a reference 
to the fall of Liege and the hopeless folly 
of attempting to resist the German in- 
vasion, and continuing with an intimation 
of the terrible consequences which would 
follow Belgium's persistence in her mad 
idea of keeping her word of honor. In effect 
the note was a curious combination of an 
insult and a threat. I promptly and posi- 
tively refused to transmit it or to have 
anything to do with it. 

"But why," said the German counsellor, 
sitting by my study fire — a Prussian of 
the Prussians — "why do you refuse.^ You 
are a neutral, a friend of both parties. Why 
not simply transmit the note to your col- 
league in Brussels as you did before.^ You 

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are not in any way responsible for its con- 
tents." 

*' Quite so," I answered, "and thank God 
for that ! But suppose you had a quarrel 
with a neighbor in the Rheinland, who had 
positively declined a proposition which 
you had made to him. And suppose, the 
ordinary post-boy services being inter- 
rupted, you asked me to convey to your 
neighbor a note which began by addressing 
him as a 'silly s — of a b — ,' and ended by 
telling him that if he did not agree you 
would certainly grind him to powder. 
Would you expect me to play the post- 
boy for such a billet-doux on the ground 
that I was not responsible for its contents 
and was a friend of both parties?" 

"Well," replied the counsellor, laughing 
at the North American directness of my 
language, "probably not." So he folded 
up the note and took it away. What be- 
came of it I do not know nor care. 

The third request was of still another 
quality. It came from the Imperial Austro- 

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FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Hungarian Legation, which very poKtely 
asked me to transmit a message in the 
American diplomatic code to my colleague 
in Brussels for delivery to the Austro- 
Hungarian Legation, which still lingered 
in that city. The first and last parts of 
the message were in plain language, good 
English, quite innocent and proper. But 
the kernel of the despatch was written in the 
numerical secret cipher of Vienna, which of 
course I was unable to read, I drew atten- 
tion to this, and asked mildly how I could 
be expected to put this passage into our 
code without knowing what the words 
were. The answer was that it would not 
be necessary to code this passage; it could 
be transmitted in numbers just as it stood; 
the Austro-Hungarian charge d'affaires at 
Brussels would understand it. 

"Quite so," I answered, ''hut you see the 
point is that I do not understand it. My 
dear count, you are my very good friend, 
and it grieves me deeply to decline any 
requests of yours. But the simple fact is 

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that our instructions explicitly forbid us 
to send any message in two codes, '^ 

The count — who, by the way, was an 
excellent and most amiable man — blushed 
and stammered that he was only carrying 
out the instructions of his chief, but that 
my point was perfectly clear and indis- 
putable. I was glad that he saw it in that 
light, and we parted on the most friendly* 
terms. What became of the message I do 
not know nor care. 

It was about the 1st of September, 1915, 
that I came into brief contact with the 
case of Mr. J. F. J. Archibald. This gen- 
tleman was an American journalist, and 
a very clever and agreeable man. We had 
met some months before, when he was on 
his way back to America from his pro- 
fessional work in Germany, and he had 
been a welcome guest at my table. But 
the second meeting was different. 

This time Mr. Archibald was returning 
toward Germany on the Holland-America 
steamship Rotterdam. When the boat 

[169] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

touched at Falmouth, on August 30, the 
British authorities examined his luggage 
and found that he was carrying private 
letters and official despatches from Doctor 
Dumba the Austrian Ambassador at Wash- 
ington, from Count Bernstorff the German 
Ambassador, and from Captain von Papen 
his military attache. Not only was the 
carrying of these letters by a private person 
on a regular mail route a recognized offense 
against the law, but the documents them- 
selves contained matter of an incriminat- 
ing and seditious nature, most unfriendly 
to the United States. The egregious Doctor 
Dumba, for example, described how it 
would be possible to ''disorganize and 
hold up for months if not entirely pre- 
vent," the work of American factories; 
and the colossal Captain von Papen, in a 
letter referring to the activities of German 
secret agents in America, gave birth to 
his eloquent and unforgettable phrase, 
"these idiotic Yankees." The papers, of 
course, were taken from Mr. Archibald 

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at Falmouth, but he was allowed to con- 
tinue his voyage to Rotterdam en route 
for Beriin. 

Before his arrival, however, a cablegram 
came from the Department of State at 
Washington instructing me to take up his 
regular passport which was made out to 
cover travel in Germany; to give him an 
emergency passport valid for one month 
and good only for the return to the United 
States; and to use all proper means to get 
him back to New York at the earliest pos- 
sible date. 

Having found out that he was lodged at 
a certain hotel I sent him a courteous in- 
vitation to call at the Legation on business 
of importance. He came promptly and we 
sat down in the library for a conversation 
which you will admit had its delicate 
points. 

He began by saying that he supposed I 
had seen the newspaper accounts of what 
happened to him at Falmouth; that he 
was greatly surprised and chagrined about 

[171] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the matter; that he had been entirely ig- 
norant of the contents of the documents 
found in his possession; that he had 
imagined — indeed he had been distinctly 
told — that they were innocent private 
letters relating to personal and domestic 
affairs; that he did not know there was 
any impropriety in conveying such letters; 
that if he had suspected their nature or 
known that they included official des- 
patches he would never have taken them. 

I replied that his personal statement was 
enough for me on that point, but that it 
seemed to throw rather a dark shadow on 
the character and conduct of his friends in 
the German and Austrian Embassies who 
had knowingly exposed his innocence to 
such a risk. I added that it was probably 
with a view to obtaining his help in clear- 
ing up the matter that the Department 
of State had instructed me to take up his 
passport. 

*'But have you the legal right to do 
that.^" 

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STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

"Under American law, yes, unquestion- 
ably." 

''But under Dutch law?" 

"Probably not. But I hope it will not be 
necessary to invoke that law. Simply to 
inform the Dutch Foreign Minister of the 
presence of an American whose passport 
had been revoked but who refused to give 
it up, would be sufficient for my purpose." 

He reflected for a moment, and then 
said, smiling: 

"I don't refuse to give it up. Here it is. 
Now tell me what I shall do without a 
passport." 

"Thank you. Fortunately I have au- 
thority to give you an emergency pass- 
port, good for a month, and covering the 
return voyage to America." 

"But I don't want to go there. I want 
to go on to Berlin." 

"Unfortunately I fear that will be im- 
possible. Your old passport is invalid and 
will not carry you over the Dutch border. 
Your new passport cannot be made out 

[1731 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

for Germany. Your best course is to re- 
turn home." 

*'I see. But have you any right to arrest 
me and send me to America?" 

''None whatever, my dear sir. Please 
don't misunderstand me. This is just a 
bit of friendly advice. 'Your country needs 
you.' You naturally want an early chance 
to tell Washington what you have told 
me. The Rotterdam is a very comfortable 
ship, and she sails for New York the day 
after to-morrow. I have already bespoken an 
excellent room for you. Do you accept?" 

"Yes, and thank you for the way you 
have put the matter. But do you think 
they will arrest me when I get to New 
York?" 

"Probably not. But to help in forestall- 
ing that unpleasant possibility I will cable 
Washington that you are coming at once, 
of your own free will, and anxious to tell 
the whole story." 

So he went, and I saw him off on the 
Rotterdam^ a pallid and downcast figure. 

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I pitied him. It seemed strange that any- 
one should ever trust that unscrupulous, 
callous, thick-pated diplomatic-secret-ser- 
vice machine which is always ready to 
expose a too confiding and admiring friend 
to danger or disgrace in order to serve its 
imperious necessities. 

Holland, of course, owing to its geograph- 
ical situation, was a regular nest of German 
espionage. Other spies were there, too, but 
they were much less in evidence than the 
Germans. Of the tricks and the manners 
of the latter I had some picturesque ex- 
periences which I do not feel at liberty to 
narrate. The Department of State has 
been informed of them, and has no doubt 
put the information safely away with a 
lot of other things which it knows but does 
not think it expedient or necessary to tell 
until the proper time. 

But there is no reason why the simple 
little tale of the futile attempt to plant 
two German spies in my household at The 
Hague should not be told. One of the men 

[175] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

in our domestic service, a Hollander, had 
been obliged to leave and we wanted to 
fill his place. This was difficult because the 
requirements of the Dutch army service 
claimed such a large number of the younger 
men. 

The first who applied for the vacant place 
professed to be a Belgian. Perhaps he was. 
On demand he produced his "papers" — 
birth-certificate, baptismal registry, several 
Passierscheine, and so forth. But down in 
a corner on the back of one of the papers 
was a dim blue stamp — ^'Imperial German 
Marine.'' What was the meaning of this? 
What had the Potsdam High-Sea Fleet 
to do with this peaceable overland traveller 
from Belgium .f^ Voluble excuses, but no 
satisfactory explanation. I told him that 
I feared he was too experienced for the 
place. 

The second who applied was an unques- 
tionable Dutchman, young, good-looking, 
intelligent. Papers in perfect order. Pres- 
ent service with a well-known pro-German 

[ 176 ] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

family. Previous service of one year with 
a lady who was one of my best friends — 
the wife of a high government official. I 
rang her up on the telephone and asked 
if she could tell me anything about A. B., 
who had been in service with her for a 
year. A second of silence, then the answer: 
*'Yes, a good deal, but not on the tele- 
phone, please. Come around to tea this 
afternoon." Madame L. then told me that 
while the young man was clean, sober, and 
industrious, he had been found rummaging 
among her husband's official papers, in a 
room which he was forbidden to enter, 
and had been caught several times hsten- 
ing at the keyhole of doors while private 
conferences were going on. 

It seemed to me that a young man with 
such an uncontrollable thirst for knowledge 
would not be suited for the very simple 
service which would be required of him in 
our household. 

Afterward, traces of both of these men 
were found which led unmistakably to 

[177] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the lair of the chief spider of the German 
secret service at The Hague. The incident 
was a very small one. But, after all, life 
is made up of small incidents with a con- 
nected meaning. 

At the time when I am writing this (Sep- 
tember 24, 1917) the moral character of 
the tools of the Potsdam gang has again 
been stripped naked by the disclosure of 
the treachery by which the German Lega- 
tion in Argentina has utilized the Swedish 
Legation in that country to transmit, 
under diplomatic privilege, messages in- 
citing to murder on the high seas. Ar- 
gentina has already taken the action to 
be expected from an American Republic 
by dismissing the German Minister. 
^Tiat Sweden will do to vindicate her 
honor remains to be seen. Her attitude 
may affect our opinion of her as a victim 
or a vassal of Potsdam. 

There are two points in the disclosures 
made on September 23 by the Depart- 

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STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

ment of State which bear directly upon 
this simple narrative of experiences at 
The Hague. 

The fetching female comic-opera star, 
Ray Beveridge, discreetly alluded to in 
the third chapter (p. 71), was secretly 
paid three thousand dollars by the Im- 
perial German Embassy in Washington 
to finance her artistic activities. So, you 
see, I was not far wrong in forwarding her 
divorce papers to Germany and refusing 
to transmit her newspaper correspondence 
to America. She was a paid soubrette in 
the Potsdam troupe. 

The affable and intelligent Mr. Archi- 
bald, alluded to in this chapter (p. 169), 
received on April 21, 1915, according to 
these disclosures, five thousand dollars 
from the Imperial German Embassy in 
Washington for "propaganda" services. 
If I had known this when he came to me 
in September, it is possible that I should 
have been less careful to spare his feel- 
ings. 

[179] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

III 

The record of the German submarine 
warfare on merchant shipping is one of 
the most extraordinary chapters in his- 
tory. Americans have read it with ap- 
propriate indignation, but not always with 
clear understanding of the precise issues 
involved. Let me try to make those issues 
plain, since the submarine campaign was 
one of the causes which forced this war 
upon the United States. (President's Mes- 
sage to Congress, April 2, 1917, para- 
graphs 2-10.) 

In war all naval vessels, including of 
course submarines, have the right to at- 
tack and destroy, by any means in their 
power, any war-ship of the enemy. In 
regard to merchant-ships the case is dif- 
ferent, according to international law. 
(See G. G. Wilson, International Law, 
§§114, 136, New York, 1901-1909.) 

The war- vessel has the right of "visit 
and search" on all merchant-ships, enemy 

[180] 



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or neutral. It has also the right. In ease 
the cargo of the merchant-ship appears to 
include more than a certain percentage of 
contraband, to capture it and take it into 
a port for adjudication as a prize. The 
war-vessel has also the right to sink a 
presumptive prize under conditions (such 
as distance, stress of weather, and so forth) 
which make it impossible to take it into 
port. 

But here the right of the war-vessel 
stops. It has absolutely no right to sink the 
merchant-ship without warning and with- 
out making efficient provision for the safety 
of the passengers and crew. That is the 
common law of civilized nations. To break 
it is to put one's self beyond the pale. 

Some Germanophile critics have faulted 
me for calling the Teutonic submarines 
^'Potsdam pirates." A commissioned vessel, 
these critics say, which merely executes 
the orders of its government, cannot 
properly be called a pirate. 

Why not.'^ Take the definition of piracy 

[181] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

given in the New Oxford Dictionary: 
"The crime of robbery or depredation on 
the sea by persons not holding a commis- 
sion from an established civilized state J ^ 

There's the point! Is a nation which 
orders its servants to commit deeds for- 
bidden by international law, a nation 
which commands its naval officers to com- 
mit deliberate, wanton, dastardly murder 
on the high seas (case of Belgian Prince^ 
July 31, 1917, and others), is such a na- 
tion to be regarded as ''an established 
civilized state"? 

Were Algiers and Tunis and Tripoli 
"civiHzed states" when they sent out 
the Barbary pirates in the eighteenth and 
early nineteenth centuries? We thought 
not, and we sent our war-ships to whip 
the barbarism out of them. 

Commodore Stephen Decatur, in 1815, 
forced the cruel and cowardly Dey of 
Algiers to sign a deed of renunciation and 
a promise of good conduct, on the deck 
of an American frigate, under the Stars 
and Stripes. 

[182] 



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A hundred years ago the glory of the 
American navy was made clear to the 
world in the suppression of the pirates of 
North Africa. To-day that glory must 
be maintained by firm, fearless, unrelent- 
ing war against the pirates of North Ger- 
many. 

A commission to do a certain thing which 
is in itseK unlawful does not change the 
nature of the misdeed. No nation has a 
right to commission its oflBcers to violate 
the law of nations. 

But the Germans say their submarines 
are such wonderful, delicate, scientific ma- 
chines that it is impossible for them to 
give warning of an attack, or to do any- 
thing to save the helpless people whose 
peaceful vessel has been sunk beneath 
their feet. The precious, fragile submarine 
cannot be expected to observe any law 
of humanity which would imperil its further 
usefulness as an instrument of destruc- 
tion. 

Marvellous argument — worthy of the 
Potsdam mind in its highest state of Kul- 

[183] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

tur! By the same reasoning any assassin 
might claim the right to kill without re- 
sistance because he proposed to commit 
the crime with a dagger so delicately 
wrought, so frail, so slender, that the 
slightest struggle on the part of his victim 
would break the costly, beautiful, mur- 
derous weapon. 

Again, these extraordinary Germans say 
that merchant-ships ought not to carry 
weapons for defense; it is too dangerous 
for the dainty U-boat; every merchant- 
man thus armed must be treated as a 
vessel of war. But the law of nations for 
more than two centuries has sanctioned 
the carrying of defensive armament by 
merchant-ships, and precisely because they 
might need it to protect themselves against 
pirates, 

\. Shall the United States be asked to re- 
write this article of international law, in 
the midst of a great war on sea and land? 
Shall the government at Washington be 
seduced by cajolery, or compelled by 

[184] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

threats, to rob the merchantmen of the 
poor protection of a single gun in order 
that they may fall absolutely helpless 
into the black hands of the prowling Pots- 
dam pirates? That would be neutrality 
with a vengeance ! Yet that is just what 
the Imperial German Government tried 
to persuade or force the United States 
to do. Thank God the effort was vain. 

These were the matters under discus- 
sion when I was called to Washington in 
February, 1916, for consultation with the 
President. The long and wearing con- 
troversy had been going on for months. 
Every month notes were coming from 
Berlin, each more evasive and unsatis- 
factory than the last. Every week Count 
Bernstorff and his aides were coming to 
the State Department with new excuses, 
new subterfuges, and the same old lies. 
The President and Secretary Lansing, both 
of whom are excellent international lawyers, 
found their patience tried to the utter- 
most by the absurdity of the arguments 

[185] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

presented to them and by the veiled con- 
tempt in the manner of the presentation. 
But they kept their tempers and did their 
best to keep the peace. 

On two points they were firm as adamant. 
First, the law of nations should not and 
could not be changed in the midst of a 
war to suit the need of one of the parties. 
Second, "the use of submarines for the 
destruction of commerce is of necessity, 
because of the very character of the vessels 
employed and the very methods of attack 
which their employment of course involves, 
incompatible with the principles of hu- 
manity, the long-established and incon- 
trovertible rights of neutrals, and the 
sacred immunities of non-combatants." 
(President Wilson's Address to Congress, 
April 19, 1916.) 

It was on my return from this visit to 
Washington that I had an opportunity 
of observing at close range the crooked 
methods of the Potsdam gang in regard 
to the U-boat warfare. Arriving at The 

[186] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

Hague on March 24, 1916, I found Hol- 
land aflame with helpless rage over the 
recent sinking of the S.S. Tubantiay the 
newest and best boat of the Netherlands- 
Lloyd merchant-fleet. She was torpedoed 
by an unseen submarine on March 15. 

An explanation was promptly demanded 
from the German Government, which 
denied any knowledge of the affair. Hol- 
land, lacking evidence as to the perpetrator 
of the crime, would have had to swallow 
this denial but for an accident which fur- 
nished her with the missing proof. One of 
the Tubantia's small boats drifted ashore. 
In the boat was a fragment of a Schwarz- 
kopf torpedo — a type manufactured and 
used only by Germany. This fragment 
was forwarded to Berhn, with another 
and more urgent demand for explanation, 
apology, and reparation. 

The German newspapers coolly replied 
with the astounding statement that there 
had been two or three Schwarzkopf tor- 
pedoes in naval museums in England, and 

[1871 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

that this particular specimen had proba- 
bly been given to a British submarine and 
used by her to destroy the good ship Tu- 
hantia. 

Again Holland would have been left 
helpless, choking with indignation, but 
for a second accident. Another of the 
lost steamship's boats was found, and in 
it there was another fragment of the tor- 
pedo. This fragment bore the mark of the 
German navy, telling just when the torpedo 
was made and to which of the U-boats it had 
been issued. 

With this bit of damning evidence in 
his bag a Dutch naval expert was sent to 
Berlin to get to the bottom of the crime 
and to demand justice. He got there, but 
he found no justice in that shop. 

The German navy is very systematic, 
keeps accurate books, makes no accidental 
mistake. The pedigree and record of the 
SchwarzJwpf were found. It was issued to 
a certain U-boat on a certain date. Un- 
doubtedly it was the missile which unfor- 

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tunately sank the Tuhantia, All this was 
admitted and deeply regretted. But Ger- 
many was free from all responsibility for 
the sad occurrence. The following amazing 
reason was given by the Imperial German 
Government. 

This certain U-boat had fired this cer- 
tain torpedo at a British war-vessel some- 
where in the North Sea ten days before 
the Tuhantia was sunk. The shot missed 
its mark. But the naughty, undisciplined 
little torpedo went cruising around in the 
sea on its own hook for ten days waiting 
for a chance to kill somebody. Then the 
Tuhantia came along, and the wandering- 
Willy torpedo promptly, stupidly, ran into 
the ship and sank her. This was the ex- 
planation. Germany was not to blame. 
(See the official report in the Orange Boohs 
of the Netherlands Government, July, 1916, 
December, 1916.) 

This stupendous fairy-tale Holland was 
expected to believe and to accept as the 
end of the affair. She did not believe it. 

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FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

She had to accept it. What else could she 
do? Fight? She did not want to share 
Belgium's dreadful fate. The Dutch Govern- 
ment proposed that the whole Tuhantia in- 
cident be submitted to an international 
commission. The German Government ac- 
cepted this proposal en principe, but said 
it must be deferred until after the war. 

I wonder why some of the Americans 
who blame Holland for not being in arms 
against Germany never think of that stern 
and awful deterrent which stands under 
her eyes and presses upon her very bosom. 
She is still independent, still neutral, still 
unravaged. Five-sixths of her people, I 
believe, have no sympathy with the Ger- 
man Government in its choice and con- 
duct of this war. At least this was the case 
while I was at The Hague. But the one 
thing that Holland is, above all else, is 
pro-Dutch. She wants to keep her Kberty, 
her sovereignty, her land untouched. To 
defend these treasures she will fight, and 
for no other reason. I have heard Queen 

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Wilhelmina say this a score of times. She 
means it, and her people are with her. 

Seven Dutch ships were sunk in a bunch 
in the Enghsh Channel by the Potsdam 
pirates on February 22, 1917. Holland 
was furious. She stated her grievance, 
protested, remonstrated — and there she 
stopped. If she had tried to do anything 
more she stood to lose a third of her ter- 
ritory in a few days and the whole in a 
few weeks — lose it, mark you, to the gang 
that ruined Belgium. 

But the position, and therefore the case, 
of America in regard to the German sub- 
marine warfare was quite different. She 
was one of the eight "Big Powers" of the 
world. She was the mightiest of the 
neutrals. 

Her rights at sea were no greater than 
theirs. But her duties were greater, just 
because she was larger, more powerful, 
better able to champion those rights not 
only for herself but also for others. 

She would not have to pay such an in- 

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FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

slant, awful, crushing penalty for armed 
resistance to the brutalities of the Potsdam 
gang as would certainly be inflicted upon 
the httle northern neutrals if they at- 
tempted to defend themselves against in- 
justice and aggression. 

Their part was to make protest, and record 
it, and wait for justice until the war was 
ended. America's part was to make pro- 
test, and then — her protest being mocked, 
scorned, disregarded — to stand up in arms 
with France and Great Britain and help 
to end the war by a victory of righteous 
peace. 

But did we not also have objections to 
some of the measures and actions of the 
British blockade — as, for instance, the sei- 
zure and search of the mails? Certainly 
we did, and Secretary Lansing stated them 
clearly and maintained them firmly. But 
here is the difference. These objections 
concerned only the rights of neutral property 
on the high seas. We knew by positive as- 
surance from England, and by our experi- 

[\n\ 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

ence with her in the Alabama Claims Arbi- 
tration, that she was ready to refer all such 
questions to an impartial tribunal and 
abide by its decision. Our objections to 
the conduct of the German navy con- 
cerned the far more sacred rights of "life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." 

The murder of one American child at sea 
meant more to us than the seizure of a thou- 
sand cargoes of alleged contraband. 

No one has ever accused the British or 
French or Italian sailors in this war of 
sinking merchant-ships without warning, 
leaving their crews and passengers to 
drown. On the contrary, British seamen 
have risked and lost their lives in a 
chivalrous attempt to save the lives even 
of their enemies after the fair sinking of 
a German war-ship. 

But the hands of the Potsdam pirates 
are red with innocent blood. The bottom 
of the sea is strewn with the wrecks they 
have made. "The dark unfathom'd caves 
of ocean" hide the bones of their helpless 

[193] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

victims, who shall arise at the judgment- 
day to testify against them. 

On May 7, 1915, the passenger liner 
Lusitania, unarmed, was sunk without 
warning by a German U-boat off the 
Irish coast. One hundred and fourteen 
Americans — men, women, and little chil- 
dren, lawful and peaceful travellers — were 
drowned 

"Butchered to make a [Grerman] holiday." 

The hoUday was celebrated in Germany, 
The schools were let out. The soldiers 
in the reserve camps had leave to join 
in the festivities. The towns and cities 
were filled with fluttering flags and sing- 
ing folks. A German pastor preached: 
"Whoever cannot bring himself to ap- 
prove from the bottom of his heart the 
sinking of the Lusitania — ^liim we judge 
to be no true German." {Deutsche Reden 
in Schwerer Zeit, No. 24, p. 7.) A medal 
was struck to commemorate the great 
achievement. It is a very ugly medal. I 

[194] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

keep a copy of it in order that I may never 
forget the character of a nation which was 
not content with rejoicing over such a 
crime but desired to immortahze it in 
bronze. 

The three strong and eloquent notes of 
President Wilson in regard to the Lusi- 
tarda are too well known to be quoted 
here. The practical answer from Potsdam 
(passing over the usual subterfuges and 
falsehoods) was the sinking of the Arabic 
August 19 and the murder of three more 
Americans. Then the correspondence lan- 
guished until the torpedoing (March 24, 
1916) of the Sussex, a Channel ferry-boat, 
crowded with passengers, among whom 
were many Americans. Then the President 
sent a flat message calling down the Pots- 
dam pirates and declaring that unless 
they abandoned their nefarious practices 
"the United States had no choice but to 
sever diplomatic relations with the German 
Empire altogether" (April 18, 1916). 

This brought a grudging promise from 

[195] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Germany that she would henceforth re- 
frain from sinking merchant- vessels ''with- 
out warning and without saving human 
hves, unless the ship attempted to escape 
or offer resistance." How this promise 
was kept may be judged from the sinking 
of the Marina (October 28), with the loss 
of eight American hves, and of the Russian 
(December 14), with the loss of seventeen 
American lives, and other similar sinkings. 
During all this time Germany had been 
building new and larger submarines with 
wonderful industry. She had filled up her 
pack of sea-wolves. On January 31, 1917, 
she revoked her flimsy pledge, let loose 
her wolf-pack, and sent word to all the 
neutral nations that she would sink at 
sight all ships found in the zones which 
she had marked "around Great Britain, 
France, Italy, and in the Eastern Med- 
iterranean." {Why We Are at War, p. 
23, New York, 1917.) The President 
promptly broke off diplomatic relations 
(February 3), and said that we should 

[196] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

refrain from hostilities until the commis- 
sion of "actual overt acts" by Germany 
forced us to the conviction that she meant 
to carry out her base threat. 

The overt acts came quickly. Between 
February 3 and April 1 eight American 
merchant-ships were sunk, and more than 
forty American lives were destroyed by 
the Potsdam pirates. 

The die was cast. On April 2, 1917, the 
President advised Congress that the United 
States could no longer delay the formal 
acceptance of "the status of belligerent 
which had been thrust upon it." On April 
6 Congress took the necessary action. On 
the same day the President proclaimed 
that "a state of war exists between the 
United States and the Imperial German 
Government." 

Back of this momentous and noble de- 
cision, in which the hearts of the immense 
majority of Americans are with the Presi- 
dent, there are undoubtedly many strong 
and righteous reasons. Some of these I 

[197] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

have tried to set forth in the first part of 
this article. But we must never forget 
that the specific reason given by the Presi- 
dent, the definite cause which forced us 
into the war, is the German method of 
submarine warfare, which he has repeatedly 
denounced as illegal, immoral, inhuman — 
a direct and brutal attack upon us and 
upon all mankind. These words cannot be 
forgotten, nor is it likely that the Presi- 
dent will retract them. 
They set up at least one steadfast mark 
in the midst of the present flood of peace 
talk. There can be no parley with a criminal 
who is in full and exultant practice of his 
crime. Unless the U-boat warfare is re- 
nounced, repented of, and abandoned by 
the Potsdam pirates, an honorable peace 
is unattainable except by fighting for it 
and winning it.* 

* Belgian Relief ships sunk: S.S. Camilla^ Trevier, Feistein, 
Storstad, Lars Kruse, Euphrates, Haelen, and Tunis (the last 
two shelled but not sunk). 

Hospital ships sunk: Britannic (probably but not certainly 
torpedoed); Asturias, March 24, 1917; Gloucester Castle^ March 

[1981 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

IV 

Only a little space is left for writing of 
my retirement from the post at The Hague 
and my experiences thereafter in England 
and France. 

The reader may have gathered from the 
tenor of these chapters that the work at 
the legation was hard and that the situa- 
tion was trying to a man with strong con- 
victions and the habit of expressing them 
frankly. My resignation was tendered in 
September, 1916, with the request that it 
should not be made public until after the 
re-election of President Wilson, which I 
earnestly desired and expected. My reasons 
for resigning were partly of a domestic 
nature. But the main reason was a personal 
wish to get back to my work as a writer, 
"with full freedom to say what I thought 
and felt about the war." 

30; Donegal, April 17; Lanfranc, April 17 (with British wounded 
and German vxmnded 'prisoners). 
Among the neutral nations Norway alone has lost more than 
six hundred ships by mines and torpedoes of German origin. 
The dance of death still goes on. 

[1991 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

The German-American press has tried 
to start a rumor that I was recalled to 
Washington to explain my action on a 
certain point. That is absolutely and en- 
tirely false. The government never asked 
for an explanation of anything in my 
conduct while in office, or afterward. On 
the contrary, the President has been kind 
enough to express his approval of my 
services in terms too friendly to be quoted 
here. 

In November, after President Wilson had 
been triumphantly chosen for a second 
term, I ventured to recall his attention 
to my letter of September. He answered 
that he would *' reluctantly yield" to my 
wishes, but would appreciate my remain- 
ing at The Hague until a successor could 
be found for the post. Of course I wilUngly 
agreed to this. 

In December the name of this successor 
was cabled to me with instructions to find 
out whether he would be acceptable to the 
Queen and the Government of Holland. 

[200] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

Her Majesty said that this gentleman 
would certainly be persona grata, and I 
cabled to Washington to this efiFect. 

Early in January a message came from 
the Secretary of State saying that, as all 
was arranged except the jSnal confirmation 
of the appointment, I might feel free to 
leave at my convenience. Having cleaned 
up my work and left everything in order 
for my successor (including the lease of 
my house), I took ship from Flushing for 
England on January 15, 1917. 

The voyage through the danger zone 
was uneventful. The visit to England was 
unforgettable. 

Everywhere I saw the evidences that 
Great Britain was at war, in earnest, and 
resolved to '^ carry on^' with her Allies 
until the victory of a real peace was won. 

Women and girls were at work in the 
railway stations, on the trams and omni- 
buses, in the munition factories, in postal 
and telegraph service, doing the tasks of 

[ 201 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

men. We shall have to revise that phrase 
which speaks of "the weaker sex." 
By night London was 

"Dark, dark, dark, irrecoverably dark." 

But it was not still, nor terrified by the 
instant danger of Zeppelin raids. Every 
time a German vulture passed over Eng- 
land dropping bolts of indiscriminate death, 
it woke the heart of the people to a new 
impulse, not of fear but of hot indignation. 
By day the great city swarmed with 
eager life. Business was going on at full 
swing, though not "as usual." Women 
were driving trucks, carrying packages, 
running ticket-offices. Men in khaki out- 
numbered those in civilian dress. Wounded 
soldiers hobbled cheerfully along the streets. 
The parks were adorned with hospitals. 
Mrs. Pankhurst spoke from a soap-box 
near the Marble Arch; not now for woman- 
suffrage — "That will come," she said, "but 
the great thing to-day is to carry on the 
war to a victory for freedom !" 

[202] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

Oxford — gray city of the golden dream. 
Learning's fairest and most lovely seat in 
all the world — Oxford was transformed 
into a hospital for the wounded, a training- 
camp for new soldiers, a nursery of noble 
manhood equipped for the stern duties of 
war. 

Every family that I knew was in grief 
for a dear one lost on the field of glorious 
strife. But not one was in mourning. The 
great sacrifice was bravely accepted as 
a part of the greater duty. 

The friends with whom I talked most — 
men like Lord Bryce, Sir Sydney Lee, Sir 
Herbert Warren, Sir Robertson NicoU, Sir 
William Osier — were lovers of peace, tried 
and well-known. All were of one mind in 
holding that Britain's faith and honor 
bound her to accept the war when Ger- 
many violated Belgium, and that it must 
be fought through until the Prussian mili- 
tary autocracy which began it was broken. 

There were restricted rations in England; 
but no starvation and no sign of it. There 

[203] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

were partisan criticisms and plenty of 
"grousing." The Britisher is never con- 
tented unless he can grumble — especially 
at his own government. But there was 
no lack of a real unity of purpose, nor of 
a solid, cheerful, bull-dog determination to 
hang on to the enemy until he came down. 
It is this spirit that has enabled a nation, 
which was almost ignorant of what mili- 
tary preparedness meant, to put between 
three and four million troops into the field 
in defense of justice and liberty. 

At the end of January I went to France, 
eager to see with my own eyes the great 
things that were doing there and to taste 
with my own lips the cup of danger. That 
at least I was bound to do before I could 
come home and urge my countrymen to 
face the duty and brave the peril of a part 
in this war. 

Paris was not so dark as London but 
more tragic. After Belgium and Servia 
the heaviest brunt of this dreadful con- 

[204] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

flict has fallen upon France. She has suf- 
fered most. Yet on the faces of her women 
I saw no tears and in the eyes of her men 
no fear nor regret. 

If Britain was magnificent, France was 
miraculous ! Loving and desiring peace she 
accepted the cross of war without a 
murmur. Her women were no less brave 
than her men. She wears the hero-star 
of Roland and the saintly halo of Joan of 
Arc. 

After meeting many men in Paris — states- 
men, men of letters, generals — and after 
visiting the splendid American Ambulance 
at Neuilly and other institutions in which 
our boys and girls were giving their help 
to France in the chivalric spirit of Lafay- 
ette, I went out toward the front. 

The first visit was under the escort of 
Captain Frangois Monod to a chateau be- 
yond Compiegne, where Rudyard Kipling 
with his family and I with my family had 
passed the Christmas week of 1913 to- 
gether, as joyous guests of the American 

[ 205 1 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

chatelaine Mrs. Julia Park. She has given 
the spacious, lovely house for a military 
hospital. And there, while the German 
guns thundered a few kilometres away 
from us and a German sausage balloon 
floated in the sky, I watched the skilful 
ministrations of French and American 
doctors and nurses to the wounded. 

One thought haunted me — the memory 
of Kipling's only son, nineteen years old, 
who was with us in that happy Christmas- 
tide. The lad was reported "missing" 
after one of the battles between Loos and 
Hulluch. For six months I sought, with the 
help of Herr von Kuhlmann, German Min- 
ister at The Hague, to find a trace of the 
brave boy. But never a word could we get. 

The second visit was to the battle-field 
of the Marne under the escort of Captain 
the Count de Ganay. We motored slowly 
through the ruined towns and villages. 
Those which had been wrecked by shell- 
fire were like mouthfuls of broken teeth — 
chimneys and fragments of walls still 

[206] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

standing. Those which had been venge- 
fuUy burned by the retreating Germans 
were mere heaps of ashes. Most of our 
time was spent around the Marais de St. 
Gondy where the French General Foch 
held the Thermopylae of Europe. 

Four times he advanced across that marsh 
and was driven back, but not beaten. The 
fifth time he advanced and stayed, and 
Paris was forever lost to the Germans. 
Think of the men who made that last ad- 
vance and saved Europe from the Pots- 
dam gang. Their graves, carefully marked 
and tended, lie thickly strewn along the 
lonely ridges of all that region — humble 
but immortal reminders of glorious heroism. 

The third visit was with the same escort 
to the fighting front at Verdun. 

The long, bare, rolling ridges between 
Bar-le-Duc and the Meuse; the high- 
shouldered hills along the river and around 
the ruined little city; the open fields, 
the narrow valleys, the wrecked villages, 
the shattered woodlands — all were covered 

[207] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

with dazzling snow. The sun was bright 
in a cloudless sky. A bitter, biting wind 
poured fiercely, steadily out of the north, 
driving the glittering snow-dust before it. 
Every man had put on all the clothes he 
possessed, and more; pads of sheepskin 
over back and breast; gunny sacks tied 
around the shoulders. The troops of 
cavalry, the teams of mules and horses 
dragging munition-wagons or travelling 
kitchens or long "75" guns, clattered 
along the iron surface of the Via Sacra — 
that blessed road which made the salva- 
tion of Verdun possible after the only 
railway was destroyed. Endless trains of 
motor-lorries lumbered by. The narrow 
trenches were coated with ice. The hill- 
side trails were slippery as glass. In the 
deep dugouts small sheet-iron stoves were 
burning, giving out a little heat and a 
great deal of choking smoke. The soldiers 
sat around them playing cards or telUng 
stories. 
But there! What I saw in that shell- 

[208] 



STAND FAST, YE FREE! 

pitted, snow-covered, hard-frozen amphi- 
theatre of heroism cannot be described in 
these brief paragraphs. The serenity, cheer- 
fulness, courtesy, and indomitable courage 
of the French poilus defending their own 
land; the scenes in the trenches with the 
German shells breaking around us and 
the wounded men being carried past us; 
the luncheon in the citadel with the com- 
mandant and officers in a subterranean 
room where the motto on the wall, above 
the world-renowned escutcheon of Verdun, 
was "0?i ne passe pas'' — ''They don't get 
by"; the dinner with the general and 
staflE of the Verdun army, in a Uttle vil- 
lage "somewhere in France," and their 
last words to me, "O/i les aural Qa pent 
etre long, mats on les aura!'' — "It may 
take long, but we shall get them!" — all 
these and a thousand more things are 
vivid in my memory but cannot be told 
now. 

One scene sticks in my mind and asks 
to be recorded. 

[209] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

The hospital was just back of the Verdun 
lines. Its roofs were marked with the Red 
Cross. Twenty -four hundred beds, all clean 
and quiet. Wards full of German wounded, 
cared for as tenderly as the French. "Will 
you see an operation .^^ " said the proud 
little commandant who was showing me 
through his domain. "Certainly." A big, 
husky fellow was on the operating-table, 
unconscious, under ether. One of the best 
surgeons in France was performing the 
operation of trepanning. I could see the 
patient's brain, bare and beating, while 
the surgeon did his skilful work. Other 
doctors stood around, and three nurses, 
one an American girl. Miss Cowen, of 
Pittsburgh. "Will the man get well?" I 
asked the surgeon. "I hope so," he an- 
swered. "At all events, we shall do our 
best for him. You know, he is a German — 
c'est un BocheT^ 

On August 20, 1917, that very hospital, 
marked with the Red Cross, was bombed 
by German aeroplanes. One wing was set 

[2101 



STAND FAST, YE FREE!, 

on fire. While the nurses and helpers were 
trying to rescue the patients, the bloody 
Potsdam vultures flew back and forth three 
times over the place, raking it with ma- 
chine guns. More than thirty persons were 
killed, including doctors, German wounded, 
and one woman nurse. God grant it was 
not the American girl ! Yet why would 
not the killing of a French sister under 
the Red Cross be just as wicked? 

Here I break off — uncompleted — ^my nar- 
ration of the evil choice of war and the 
crimes in the conduct of war which have 
made the name of Germany abhorred. 

The Allies, from the beginning, have 
pleaded for peace and fought for peace. 
America, obeying her conscience, has 
joined them in the conflict. 

But what do we mean now by peace? 
We mean more than a mere cessation of 
hostihties. We mean that the burglar shall 
give back all that he has grabbed. We 
mean that the marauder shall make good 

[mi 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

all the damage that he has done. We mean 
that there shall be an open league of free 
democratic states, great and small, to 
guard against the recurrence of such a 
bloody calamity as the autocratic, mili- 
taristic Potsdam gang precipitated upon 
the world in 1914. 

In the next chapter I shall discuss briefly 
the practical significance of this kind of 
peace and the absolute preconditions which 
must be realized before any conference 
on the subject will be profitable or even 
safe. 

The duty of the present is to fight on be- 
side France, Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, 
Servia, Roumania, and, we hope, Russia, 
"to bring the Government of the German 
Empire to terms and end the war." 

To talk of any other course is treason, 
not only to our country but to the cause 
of true Peace. 



[212] 



L 



VII 

PAX HUMANA 



PAX HUMANA 

I 

The trouble with the ordinary or garden 
variety of pacifist is that he has a merely 
negative idea of peace. 

The true idea of peace is positive, con- 
structive, forward-looking. It is not content 
with a mere cessation of hostilities at any 
particular period of the world's history. It 
aims at the establishment of reason and jus- 
tice as the rule of the world's life. It pro- 
poses to find the basis of this establishment 
in the freely expressed will of the peoples 
of the world. 

The men and women who do the world's 
work are the sovereigns who must guarantee 
this real peace of the world. 

That is what we are fighting for. Not 
fax Romana, nor pax Germanica, nor pax 
Britannica, but pax Humana — a peace 

[215] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

which will bring a positive benefit to all the 
tribes of humanity. 

Since the choice by the Imperial German 
Government, in August, 1914, of war as the 
means of settling international disputes, the 
Allies have been fighting against that choice 
and its bloody consequences. Every one of 
them — Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia 
— had pleaded for arbitration, conference, 
consultation, to avert this fearful conflict 
of arms. But it was in vain. 

The United States of America, forced by 
the flagrant violation of its neutral rights to 
take an active part in the war, and led by 
its vital sympathies to the side of the Allies, 
committed by honor and conscience to the 
duty of fighting for a real peace of mankind, 
must carry on this war until its humane and 
democratic object is attained. To do less 
than that would be to renounce our place as 
a great nation, to deny our faith as Ameri- 
cans, and to expose our country to incalcu- 
lable peril and disaster. 

But now that all the nations of the earth 

[216] 



PAX HUMANA 

have begun to realize the horror of this 
abominable German war, and to desire its 
ending, it is necessary for us, in conjunction 
with our friends of peaceful and democratic 
purpose, to consider, first, the conditions 
under which peace may be discussed with 
the Imperial German Government, and, 
second, the terms on which a peace may 
possibly be concluded. 

II 

THE CONDITIONS OF A PEACE CONFERENCE 

We should distinguish clearly between the 
conditions which must be fulfilled before we 
can honorably enter into any talk of peace 
with our adversary, the begetter and begin- 
ner of this war; and the terms which the 
Allies and the United States and the other 
nations at war with Germany would put for- 
ward in such a conversation as a just and 
durable basis for the establishment of peace. 

This distinction is essential. The conditions 
are antecedent and indispensable. Until they 

[217] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

are fulfilled we cannot talk with the enemy, 
except in the language which he has chosen 
and forced upon us — the stern tongue of 
battle by land and sea. 

Germany grandiloquently claims to be the 
first to propose a peace-conference as a sub- 
stitute for the horrors of war. (See the 
Kaiser's note of December 12, 1916.*) 

She forgets the many proposals for such a 
conference which were made to her in the 
fateful month of July, 1914, by Servia, 
France, Great Britain, Italy, and Russia — 
all of which she contemptuously brushed 
aside in her scornful will to war. She forgets 
the offenses against international law and 
against the plain precepts of humanity 
which she has committed since that time 
and which have earned for her the indigna- 

* This note contains not the slightest reference to the nature 
of the suggested peace. Its tone conforms to the orders which the 
Kaiser issued to his army on the same day: "Under the influence 
of the victory which you have gained by your bravery, I and the 
monarchs of the three states in alliance with me have made an 
offer of peace to the enemy. It is uncertain whether the object 
at which this offer is aimed will be reached. You •^^ill have mean- 
while, with God's help, to continue to resist and defeat the 
enemy." It was not a proposal of peace. It was a proclamation of 
\'ictory — German victory — and an invitation to surrender. 

[218] 



PAX HUMANA 

tion and mistrust of mankind. She forgets 
that her so-called proposal for a peace con- 
ference contained no suggestion of the terms 
of peace which she was willing to discuss. 
She forgets that such a proposal is a mere 
hypocritical mockery. No sane person, no 
intelligent nation, would enter into a con- 
ference without knowledge of the things to 
be considered. 

This last point lies at the base of President 
Wilson's note of December 18, 1916, sug- 
gesting that the belligerent powers, on both 
sides, should "avow their respective views 
as to the terms upon which the war might 
be concluded and the arrangements which 
would be deemed satisfactory as a guarantee 
against its renewal or the kindling of any 
similar conflict in the future." This note, I 
believe, was sent to all the American Am- 
bassadors and Ministers in Europe, with 
instructions to communicate it to the Gov- 
ernments to which they were accredited, 
whether belligerent or neutral. 

Here is a point at which I can throw a lit- 

[219] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

tie new light upon the situation. I handed 
the note, as I was ordered to do, to the 
Dutch Minister, without comment or rec- 
ommendation. Almost immediately the Ger- 
man-subsidized press in Holland began to 
assail the Dutch Government for refusing 
to support President Wilson's note. It 
seemed to me that this was a falsehood, 
unjust to Holland, injurious to our Govern- 
ment, which had not asked for support. 
Therefore I made the following statement 
to the press on January 9, 1917: 

''The Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs is 
absolutely correct in saying that I handed 
him President Wilson's note of December 
18 without any request or suggestion that 
the Netherlands Government should sup- 
port it. / did so because I was so instructed 
by my Government. I was told to transmit 
the President's note simply as a matter of 
information. No request was added. The 
reason for this is because America under- 
stands the delicate and diflBcult position of 
the Netherlands Government, in the midst 

[220] 



PAX HUMANA 

of the present war, and will not urge nor 
even ask it to do anything which it does 
not judge to be wise and prudent and help- 
ful. I have done my best to promote this 
right understanding of the position of Hol- 
land in the United States, and I shall con- 
tinue to do so. I have no knowledge of any 
instructions from Washington in regard to 
the manner of delivering the President's 
note in Spain. 

*'What I cannot understand is the general 
misunderstanding of that note. It expressly 
declared that it was not an offer of media- 
tion nor a proposal of peace. It was simply 
a suggestion that the belligerents on both 
sides should state the terms on which they 
would be willing to consider and discuss 
peace. The Entente Powers have already 
done this with some clearness, and will prob- 
ably soon do so even more clearly. The Cen- 
tral Powers have politely, even affection- 
ately, but very practically, declined the 
President's invitation to state their terms. 
There is the deadlock on peace talk at pres- 

[221] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

ent. When both sides are equally frank the 
world can judge whether the peace which 
all just men desire is near or far away." 

The accuracy and propriety of this state- 
ment have never been questioned by the 
Department of State. On the contrary, it 
was practically aflSrmed by the President in 
his address to the Senate on January 22, 
1917, when he said: 

"On the 18th of December last I addressed 
an identic note to the Governments of the 
nations now at war, requesting them to 
state, more definitely than they had yet 
been stated by either group of belligerents, 
the terms upon which they would deem it 
possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of 
humanity and of the rights of all neutral 
nations like our own, many of whose most 
vital interests the war puts in constant 
jeopardy. 

"The Central Powers united in a reply 
which stated merely that they were ready 
to meet their antagonists in conference to 
discuss terms of peace. 

[222] 



PAX HUMANA 

"The Entente Powers have repHed much 
more definitely and have stated, in general 
terms indeed, but with sufficient definite- 
ness to imply details, the arrangements, 
guarantees, and acts of reparation which 
they deem to be indispensable conditions of 
a satisfactory settlement." 

Here, then, we come within sight of 
the first of the conditions which are ab- 
solutely precedent, at least so far as Amer- 
ica is concerned, to any discussion of 
peace. 

1. Germany must answer President Wil- 
son's note of December 18, 1916. She must 
state her terms of peace, maximum or mini- 
mum, frankly and unequivocally. 

Germany asserts that she is waging a de- 
fensive war. She must tell the world what 
she is defending. That she has never been 
willing to do. 

Germany asserts that she is victorious thus 
far. She must say what she thinks her "vic- 
tories" mean, and what they entitle her to 
claim and keep. 

[223] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

In brief, Germany must lay her cards on 
the table. If she wants peace — and certainly 
she needs it, — she must be willing to say 
what she means by it. 

2. The second condition precedent to any 
discussion of peace terms with Germany has 
been clearly defined by President Wilson in 
his reply to the note issued by His Holiness 
Pope Benedict. 

That reply was thoroughly sympathetic 
and conciliatory. Among its frank and 
strong paragraphs there was one which 
must be particularly noted: 

*'We cannot take the word of the present 
rulers of Germany as a guarantee of any- 
thing that is to endure unless explicitly sup- 
ported by such conclusive evidence of the 
will and purpose of the German people 
themselves as the other peoples of the world 
would be justified in accepting. Without 
such guarantees treaties of settlement, 
agreements for disarmament, covenants to 
set up arbitration in the place of force, ter- 
ritorial adjustments, reconstitutions of small 

[224] 



PAX HUMANA 



nations, if made with the German Govern- 
ment, no man, no nation, could now depend 



on. 



Understand — this is not a flat refusal to 
treat with the House of Hohenzollern in any 
circumstances, which the more rabid and 
less thoughtful newspapers of England have 
urged. It is merely a statement that the 
rulers of Germany must have behind them 
a sufficient and explicit mandate and guar- 
antee of the people of Germany before we 
can trust them. 

We do not presume to interfere in the in- 
ternal affairs of the German Empire. The 
people of that empire have a right to say 
how they shall be ruled. If they like the 
Hohenzollerns, good ! 

All that we ask is some clear, democratic 
guarantee of the German people behind the 
word of its chosen Government. 

Does this mean a complete reformation of 
the German Empire, which in effect now 
consists of twenty-two hereditary kings, 
princes, dukes, and grand dukes, with the 

[ 225 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Kaiser at the head ? Does it mean a consti- 
tutional remoulding of the empire ? 

That would be a long process. The people 
of Germany are well disciplined. There is 
small prospect of a revolution in that coun- 
try unless war compels it. 

What is it that we are pledged by Presi- 
dent Wilson's statement to insist upon as 
a precondition of any peace conference 
with Germany.^ Simply this — that behind 
the word of the Kaiser there must be the 
word of the German people. 

That word must be given in advance and 
in a way which will satisfy both the Allies 
and the United States. It is for the German 
people to jBnd the way. 

We cannot honorably talk peace with Ger- 
many until that way is found. 

3. The third condition antecedent to a 
conference on peace is the renunciation and 
abandonment of the German submarine 
warfare upon merchant shipping. 

On this point I do not speak with any 
kind of authority or oflBcial sanction. What 

[2261 



PAX HUMANA 

I say is based, indeed, upon words uttered 
with the highest authority. But the con- 
ehision drawn from them is merely my 
own judgment and has no force beyond 
that of the reasoning that has led me to it. 

The American position in regard to this 
submarine warfare — its illegality, its inhu- 
manity — ^has been clearly and eloquently 
defined by our Government again and 
again. 

"The Government of the United States has 
been apprised that the Imperial German 
Government considered themselves to be 
obliged, by the extraordinary circumstances 
of the present war and the measures adopted 
by their adversaries in seeking to cut Ger- 
many off from all commerce, to adopt 
methods of retaliation which go much be- 
yond the ordinary methods of warfare at 
sea, in the proclamation of a war zone from 
which they have warned neutral ships to 
keep away. This Government has already 
taken occasion to inform the Imperial Ger- 
man Government that it cannot admit the 

[227] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

adoption of such measures or such a warning 
of danger to operate as in any degree an 
abbreviation of the rights of American ship- 
masters or of American citizens bound on 
lawful errands as passengers on merchant 
ships of belligerent neutrality; and that it 
must hold the Imperial German Govern- 
ment to a strict accountability for any in- 
fringement of those rights, intentional or 
incidental. It does not understand the Im- 
perial German Government to question 
those rights. It assumes, on the contrary, 
that the Imperial German Government ac- 
cept, as of course, the rule that the lives of 
non-combatants, whether they be of neutral 
citizenship or citizens of one of the nations 
at war, cannot lawfully or rightfully be put 
in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of 
an unarmed merchantman, and recognize 
also, as all other nations do, the obligation 
to take the usual precaution of visit and 
search to ascertain whether a suspected 
merchantman is in fact of belligerent na- 
tionality or is in fact carrying contraband 

[228] 



PAX HUMANA 

of war under a neutral flag." (The Secretary 
of State, Washington, D. C, to the German 
Minister for Foreign AflFairs, May 13, 1915.) 
"The fact that more than one hundred 
American citizens were among those who 
perished" (reference to the sinking of the 
Lusitania) "made it the duty of the Gov- 
ernment of the United States to speak of 
these things and once more, with solemn 
emphasis, to call the attention of the Im- 
perial German Government to the grave re- 
sponsibility which the Government of the 
United States conceives that it has incurred 
in this tragic occurrence, and to the indis- 
putable principle upon which that responsi- 
bility rests. The Government of the United 
States is contending for something much 
greater than mere rights of property or 
privileges of commerce. It is contending for 
nothing less high and sacred than the rights 
of humanity, which every government hon- 
ors itself in respecting and which no govern- 
ment is justified in resigning on behalf of 
those under its care and authority." (The 

[ 229 ] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

Secretary of State, Washington, D. C, to 
the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
June 9, 1915.) 

"If a belligerent cannot retaliate against 
an enemy without injuring the lives of neu- 
trals as well as their property, humanity, 
as well as justice and a due regard for the 
dignity of neutral powers, should dictate 
that the practice be discontinued. If per- 
sisted in it would in such circumstances 
constitute an unpardonable offense against 
the sovereignty of the neutral nation af- 
fected. . . . The rights of neutrals in time 
of war are based upon principle, not upon 
expediency, and the principles are immuta- 
ble. It is the duty and obligation of belliger- 
ents to find a way to adapt the new circum- 
stances to them." (The Secretary of State, 
Washington, D. C, to the German Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, July 21, 1915.) 

"The law of nations in these matters, upon 
which the Government of the United States 
based that protest" (i. e.y against the Ger- 
man declaration of February, 1915, declar- 

[230] 



PAX HUMANA 

ing the danger zone around Great Britain 
and Ireland) "is not of recent origin or 
founded upon merely arbitrary principles 
set up by convention. It is based, on the 
contrary, upon manifest principles of hu- 
manity and has long been established with 
the approval and by the express assent of 
all civilized nations. ... It has become 
painfully evident to it (the Government of 
the United States) that the position which 
it took at the very outset is inevitable, 
namely — the use of submarines for the de- 
struction of an enemy's commerce is, of 
necessity, because of the very character of 
the vessels employed and the very methods 
of attack which their employment of course 
involves, utterly incompatible with the prin- 
ciples of humanity, the long-established and 
incontrovertible rights of neutrals, and the 
sacred immunities of non-combatants." 
(The Secretary of State, Washington, D. C, 
to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
April 18, 1916.) 
"But we cannot forget that we are in some 

[231] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

sort and by the force of circumstances the 
responsible spokesmen of the rights of hu- 
manity, and that we cannot remain silent 
while those rights seem in process of being 
sw ept away in the maelstrom of this terrible 
war. We owe it to a due regard for our own 
rights as a nation, to our sense of duty as a 
representative of the rights of neutrals the 
world over, and to a just conception of the 
rights of mankind to take this stand now 
with the utmost solemnity and firmness." 
(President Wilson's Address to Congress, 
April 19, 1916.) 

''The present German warfare against 
commerce is a warfare against mankind. It 
is a war against all nations. American ships 
have been sunk, American lives taken, in 
ways which it has stirred us ver^'- deeply to 
learn of, but the ships and people of other 
neutral and friendly nations have been sunk 
and overwhelmed in the waters in the same 
way. There has been no discrimination. 
The challenge is to all mankind. Each na- 
tion must decide for itself how it will meet 

[232] 



PAX HUMANA 

it." (President Wilson's Message to Con- 
gress, April 2, 1917.) 

The United States cannot go back on these 
words. They are fundamental in our posi- 
tion. I do not know whether the Allies have 
formally indorsed them or not. But that 
makes no difference. It seems to me that 
for America, with her traditional, unalter- 
able devotion to the doctrine of Mare Libe- 
runty as Grotius stated it, there can be no 
peace conference with a Government which 
is in active and flagrant violation of that 
principle. 

I think that for us at least — ^we do not 
venture to speak for the Allies, though we 
believe they sympathize with our point of 
view — there can be no peace parley with 
Germany until she renounces and abandons 
her atrocious method of submarine warfare 
on merchant shipping. 

Here, then, are the three conditions which 
ought to be fulfilled before we can honor- 
ably enter a conference on peace with the 
Imperial German Government. The first is 

[233] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

a legitimate inference from the statements 
of the President. The second has been 
positively laid down by the President. The 
third is drawn, purely on my own respon- 
sibility, from his words. 

First, Germany should frankly declare the 
aims with which she began this war, and the 
purposes with which she continues it on the 
territories which she has invaded. 

Second, Germany must offer adequate 
guarantees that in any peace negotiations 
her rulers shall speak only and absolutely 
with the voice of the people behind them — 
in other words, with a democratic, not an 
autocratic, sanction. 

Third, Germany ought to give a pledge of 
good faith by the abandonment of her 
illegal and inhuman submarine warfare on 
the merchant shipping of the world. 

Is it likely that the predatory Potsdam 
gang will be willing to accept these three 
conditions soon ? 

I frankly confess that I do not know. Ger- 
many is in sore straits. That I know from 

[234] 



PAX HUMANA 

personal observation. But I know also that 
she is magnificently organized, trained, and 
disciplined for obedience to the imperial 
will. She will carry her fight for world em- 
pire to the last limit. 

When that limit is reached, when the Ger- 
man people know that the attempt of their 
rulers to dominate the world by war has 
failed, then it will be time to talk with them 
about the terms of peace. 

Ill 

THE TERMS OF PEACE 

This is a long subject; and for that reason 
I mean to make it a short chapter. 

1. A discussion of peace terms with our 
enemy, the Imperial German Government, 
is neither desirable nor safe under the 
present conditions. 

Until that Government is disabused of the 
delusion that it has won, is winning, or 
will win a substantial victory in this war, 
it is not likely to say anything sane or 

[235] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

reasonable about peace. A yax Germanica 
is what it is willing to discuss. 

But that is just what we do not want. To 
enter such a discussion now would be both 
futile and perilous. 

It would probably postpone the coming of 
that real pax humana for which the Allies 
have already made such great sacrijQces, 
and for which we have pledged ourselves 
to fight at their side. 

But meantime it is wise and right and 
useful to let the German people know, by 
such means as we can find, that we have 
not entered this war in the spirit of revenge 
or conquest, and that their annihilation or 
enslavement is not among the ends which 
we contemplate. 

An admirable opportunity to give this 
humane and prudent assurance was offered 
by the Pope's proposal of a Peace Confer- 
ence (August, 1917). President Wilson, with 
characteristic acuteness and candor, made 
good use of this opportunity. While declin- 
ing the proposal clearly and firmly, as im- 

[236] 



PAX HUMANA 

possible under the present conditions, he 
added the following statement of the peace 
purposes of the United States — a statement 
which approaches a definition by the proc- 
ess of exclusion: 

"Punitive damages, the dismemberment 
of empires, the establishment of selfish and 
exclusive economic leagues, we deem inex- 
pedient, and in the end worse than futile, 
no proper basis for a peace of any kind, 
least of all for an enduring peace, that 
must be based upon justice and fairness 
and the common rights of mankind." 
(President Wilson's Note to His Holiness 
the Pope, August 27, 1917.) 

Thus far (and in my judgment no farther) 
we may go in an indirect, third-personal 
discussion of the terms of peace with our 
enemy. 

2. On the other hand, a full discussion of 
the terms of peace with our friends, the 
allied nations, will be most profitable — 
indeed, it is absolutely necessary. 

The sooner it comes — the more frank, 

[237] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

thorough, and confidential it is — the bet- 
ter! 

The Allies, as President Wilson said in the 
address already quoted (January 22, 1917), 
have stated their terms of peace ''with 
sufficient definiteness to imply details." 

These terms have been summed up again 
and again in three general words: 

RESTITUTION, 

REPARATION, 

GUARANTEES FOR THE FUTURE. 

It is for us to discuss the details which 
are implied in these terms, not with our 
enemy, but with our friends who have 
borne the brunt of this German war against 
peace. 

Nothing which would make their sacri- 
fice vain could ever satisfy the heart and 
conscience of the United States. 

We cannot honorably accept a peace 
which would leave Belgium, Luxembourg, 
Servia, Montenegro, Roumania crushed and 
helpless in the hands of their captors. 

[238] 



PAX HUMANA 

We cannot honorably accept a peace 
which would leave our sister-republic 
France hopelessly exposed to the same 
kind of an assault which Germany made 
upon her in 1870 and in 1914. 

We cannot honorably accept a peace 
which would leave Great Britain crippled 
and powerless to work with us in the main- 
tenance of the freedom of the sea. 

We cannot honorably accept a peace 
which would leave the Italian demand for 
unity unsatisfied, and the new Russian 
Republic helpless before its foes. 

Such, it seems to me, are the principles 
which must guide and govern us in the 
coming conference with our friends about 
the terms of peace. 

In regard to the right of the peoples of 
the world, small or great, to determine 
their own form of government and their 
own action, we are fully committed. This 
principle is fundamental to our existence 
as a nation. President Wilson has reafiirmed 
it again and again, never more clearly or 

[239] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

signijScantly than in his address to the 
Senate on January 2^2, 1917. 

"And there is a deeper thing involved 
than even equaUty of rights among organ- 
ized nations. No peace can last which does 
not recognize and accept the principle that 
governments derive all their just powers 
from the consent of the governed, and that 
no right anywhere exists to hand people 
about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if 
they were property. 

"I take it for granted, for instance, if I 
may venture upon a single example, that 
statesmen everywhere are agreed that there 
should be a united, independent, and au- 
tonomous Poland, and that henceforth 
inviolable security of life, of worship, and 
of industrial and social development should 
be guaranteed to all peoples who have 
lived hitherto under the power of govern- 
ments devoted to a faith and purpose hos- 
tile to their own." 

This "example" must be interpreted in 
its full bearing upon all the questions 

[240] 



PAX HUMANA 

which are likely to come up in the confer- 
ence in regard to the terms of peace. 

There is one more fixed point in the terms 
of a peace which the United States and the 
Allies can accept with honor. That is the 
formation, after this war is ended, of a 
compact, an alliance, a league, a union — 
call it what you will — of free democratic 
nations, pledged to use their combined 
forces, diplomatic, economic, and military, 
against the beginning of war by any nation 
which has not previously submitted its 
cause to international inquiry, conciliation, 
arbitration, or judicial hearing. 

Here, again, experience enables me to 
throw a little new light upon the situation. 
In November, 1914, on my way home to 
America for surgical treatment, I had the 
privilege of conveying a personal, unoffi- 
cial message to Washington from the 
British Minister of Foreign x\ffairs, Sir 
Edward (now Viscount) Grey. Remember, 
at this time America was neutral, and the 

[241] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

'^League to Enforce Peace" had not been 
formed. 

This was the substance of the message: 
*'The presence and influence of America in 
the council of peace after the war will be 
most welcome to us provided we can be 
assured of two things: First, that America 
stands for the restoration of all that Ger- 
many has seized in Belgium and France. 
Second, that America will enter and sup- 
port, by force if necessary, a league of 
nations pledged to resist and punish any 
war begun without previous submission of 
the cause to international investigation and 
judgment." 

This was the message that I took to 
Washington in 1914. Since that time the 
"League to Enforce Peace" has been or- 
ganized in America (June 17, 1915). In 
my opinion it would be better named the 
"League to Defend Peace." But the name 
makes little difference. It is the principle, 
the idea, that counts. 

This idea has been publicly approved by 

[242] 



PAX HUMANA 

the leading spokesmen of all the alHed na- 
tions, and notably by President Wilson in 
his speech at the League banquet, May 
27, 1916, and in his address to the Senate, 
January 22, 1917, in which he said: 

''Mere terms of peace between the bellig- 
erents will not satisfy even the belligerents 
themselves. Mere agreements may not make 
peace secure. It will be absolutely necessary 
that a force be created as a guarantor of 
the permanency of the settlement so much 
greater than the force of any nation now 
engaged in any alliance hitherto formed or 
projected that no nation, no probable com- 
bination of nations, could face or with- 
stand it. If the peace presently to be made 
is to endure it must be a peace made secure 
by the organized major force of mankind." 

Consider for a moment what such an or- 
ganization would mean. 

It would mean, first of all, the strongest 
possible condemnation of the attitude and 
action of Germany and her assistants in 
plotting, choosing, beginning, and forcing 

[243] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

the present war upon the world. It is pre- 
cisely because she disdained and refused 
to submit the Austro-Servian quarrel, and 
her own secret plans and purposes to in- 
vestigation, conference, judicial inquiry, 
that her blood-guiltiness is most flagrant, 
and her criminal assault upon the world's 
peace cries to Heaven for punishment. 

Moreover, such an organization of free 
democratic states would mean a practical 
step toward a new era of international re- 
lations. It would amount, in effect, to what 
Premier Ribot, in his recent address at the 
anniversary of the battle of the Marne, 
called "a league of common defense." It 
would be a new kind of treaty of alliance — 
open, not secret — made by peoples, not by 
monarchs — an alliance against wars of ag- 
gression and conquest — an alliance against 
all wars whose beginners are unwilling to 
submit their cause to the common judg- 
ment of mankind. Such an open treaty of 
defense would practically condemn and 
cancel all secret treaties for offensive war 

[244] 



PAX HUMANA 

as treasonable conspiracies against the com- 
monwealth of the world. 

But would the organization of such a 
league of nations to defend peace make 
war henceforward impossible? 

No sane man, who knows the ignorance, 
the imperfection, the passionate frailty of 
human nature entertains such a wild dream 
or makes such an extravagant claim. 

All that the league can hope to do is to 
make an aggressive war, such as Germany- 
thrust upon the world in 1914, more diffi- 
cult and more dangerous. All that it pur- 
poses is to set up a new safeguard of peace, 
based upon justice, and supported by the 
common faith, the collective force, and the 
mutual trust of democratic peoples. 

That is one of the things — yes, I think 
it is the most important thing — for which 
we are now fighting with the Allies against 
Germany and her assistants: 

PEACE WITH POWER. 

[245] 



FIGHTING FOR PEACE 

These pages have been written as a vol- 
untary contribution to the cause of our 
country in this righteous war against war. 
I should have been happier if my active 
service at the front could have been ac- 
cepted. But since my age made that im- 
possible I have tried, and shall go on try- 
ing, to do what I can in other ways to help 
our fight for real peace. 

I close this bit of work with the noble 
lines of Tennyson: 

" I would that wars should cease, 
I would the globe from end to end 

Might sow and reap in peace, 
And some new Spirit o'erbear the old. 

Or Trade refrain the Powers 
From war with kindly Hnks of gold. 

Or Love with wreatlis of flowers. 
Slav, Teuton, Kelt, I count them all 

My friends and brother souls. 
With all the peoples, great and small, 

That wheel between the poles. 
But since our mortal shadow, 111, 

To waste this earth began — 
Perchance from some abuse of Will 

In worlds before the man 

[246] 



PAX HUMANA 

Involving ours — he needs must fight 

To make true peace his own, 
He needs must combat might with might. 

Or Might would rule alone.'* 



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